


Two Hours' Traffic

by Fairycoordinator



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairycoordinator/pseuds/Fairycoordinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is a straight A student with dreams to go to med school. Nico is his opposite, depressed and dabbling in drugs. They soon discover that they are each not what they seem, and though both have their own problems, they come to find that they can’t make it through without each other. solangelo high school au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“With love’s light wings did I o’erpech these walls,_   
_For stony limits cannot hold love out,_   
_And what love can do, that dares love attempt.”_

Nico wasn’t paying attention, really.

He had tried, honestly tried, but he could tell as soon as he walked into the classroom that it wasn’t going to happen. So why try to force it? He hated Romeo and Juliet almost as much as he didn’t understand it.

He had a headache. The open pages in front of him made it worse, almost like the words were boring into his skull.

So instead he looked to the front of the classroom, where Will Solace was reading. Out loud. By his own choice. Nico couldn’t fathom why.

He didn’t know Will. Well, he supposed he did, know him. He knew his name, he knew what he looked like, he knew what he did. And Nico was pretty sure that he knew him. Will had been in almost all his classes since freshman year. He was good at sports. He was, in Nico’s opinion, off-puttingly smiley. And he was smart. Well.

Nico had always believed there was a difference between actual smart people and hard workers, and he suspected that Will fell into the latter category. He was always volunteering for this or that, always went way up and beyond whatever it was asked of him. Nico didn’t think he had ever lost a science fair, ever. He didn’t have many friends, but it wasn’t like he was ostracized or unpopular. He was just there, but he still stood out.

Nico watched him now, heard his voice ring out through the classroom, loud and clear and distinct. Nice clothes, nice smile, nice person. He probably never had to go without anything his whole life. And it was his life, that was handed to him all neatly and perfectly on a silver platter ever since he was born with an equally silver spoon in his mouth.

When Nico was born, there was no spoon. Or platter. In fact, he wasn’t handed anything. Maybe a lifetime of problems.

So naturally, Will Solace annoyed the fuck out of him.

And yet Will fascinated him. He was so different than Nico, so very different. And so Nico had always watched him since the start of high school, out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t sure why.

He was disgruntled, annoyed, condescending, and probably more than a little jealous.

Sometimes Nico wondered that maybe if he had been born with Will’s life, he wouldn’t be so fucked up. But on second thought, bad things just followed him. And he had gotten to the point where he just let them in gladly. He used to resist. But he was almost eighteen now. At the end of the year he could leave school forever, and life would take him where it wanted.

He was pretty sure that the world had a plan for everyone. Something like destiny. And once you were born, there was nothing you could do about it. At one point Nico had cursed his bad luck, but now…

Now he didn’t really care.

So he looked at Will Solace and hated him, and he didn’t even know why.

But he did, he knew why he hated him, and it disgusted him that he could feel like that.

_You’re not a good person._

_You can hate him._

_You do hate him!_

And yet, at the same time, Nico couldn’t possibly hate him.

Because Will was everything he had ever wanted to be.

It wasn’t Will’s fault. Will wasn’t the problem. Nico was the problem.

And… it always came back to that.

He dug his foot into the floor, trying to make Will’s voice go away. This was stupid. Nico had barely said ten sentences to him the past three years, and yet he thought he somehow knew him? If there was one person Nico knew, it was himself and only himself.

He tore his gaze away from Will. His fidgeting had gotten worse… he needed to forget about all this.

_Were the lights always this bright?_

Suddenly he didn’t think he could spend another minute inside the classroom.

Maybe not even another second. So the instant the teacher turned around, Nico was out the door.

When it clicked behind him, he ran. He knew he would get in trouble later. He didn’t care. He would just say he had to use the bathroom really bad. It wasn’t a lie, he did have to go to the bathroom. But not for the regular reason.

He ducked into a stall, locked it behind him.

No one was there. Perfect.

 When he got back to class, he felt better. Much better. A million times better.

He couldn’t even hear the teacher reprimanding him.

* * *

 

 

The lunch bell rang, and Will looked up.

He hadn’t even noticed that class was almost over; he had been so engrossed in what he was reading. He really liked the play. Or at least he thought he did. He hated the ending.

He got that Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy, of course, but it just seemed so… needlessly disheartening. That something, in this case, love, could go so well. But just when you think that it’s going to work, that it’s perfect, and finally forever, it falls apart.

But it was just a story. Will knew it wasn’t best to dwell on it too much. Besides, he had other classes and other work to do.

Which reminded him, he had to talk to the teacher. About what she thought about Will’s college choices. It was still early in the year, so he needed all the time he could get to think about it. Assuming he made it into all those universities his parents told him to apply to. Hopefully.

He walked up to her desk. Someone else was already there.

“Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk about-”

“No, I don’t right now, sorry. Tomorrow, Will. I’m dealing with Nico right now.”

She glared at Nico, who looked at Will.

He had a strange look in his eyes. They were dark and unfocused, like his mind was somewhere else, like the last place in the world he wanted to be was at school, in the classroom, in front of the teacher’s desk. And yet they were underlined hard, and sharp like polished rock, cutting. And sad. They flicked up and down once and then returned to looking up at something Will assumed only he could see.

For some reason Will’s heart started beating faster.

He mumbled an apology to the teacher and almost ran out of the classroom.

His mind kept wandering to those eyes, and he was struck with the sudden urge to know what they meant.

He shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. He didn’t associate with people like Nico DiAngelo, and they didn’t associate with him.

He tried to forget about it once he sat down with his friends and started eating lunch.

Not that he ever got a chance to.

“Did you hear about Nico DiAngelo today?” said Lou Ellen, leaning in as if she didn’t want other people to hear.

“What do you mean?” Will asked, pressing his pencil hard into his paper. When in doubt, do homework.

“What do you mean? You were just in class with him!” said Cecil. He acted as if he couldn’t believe that Will didn’t know what they were talking about. It wouldn’t be the first time. Will was always the last to hear about things. Maybe it was because Cecil and Lou Ellen were kind of his only friends. Or maybe it was because he didn’t really pay attention to social things.

“What? Oh, I was reading for the class. I was kind of distracted.”

“Typical Will. Well, I’ll just tell you now,” said Lou Ellen, putting down her soda. “So this happened last period in your class. I can’t believe you didn’t notice. Nico ran out of class and disappeared. And then he hid in the bathroom and got high. And this time, apparently he finally got caught.”

“Dude, he’s probably going to get expelled now,” Cecil said. “About time.”

“Is this all true?” Will asked.

Nico had been at the teacher’s desk. But it hadn’t seemed that serious of a talk.

“Well, it’s technically just a rumor. But come on, everyone knows that Nico’s a total druggie.”

For some reason that bothered Will.

God, why was Nico DiAngelo so in his head?

Why did he even care?

“Well, it’s probably just a rumor. We don’t know if he does drugs or not,” Will said quietly.

“It’s pretty obvious,” said Cecil, shrugging. “This was just the first time he did them at school, that’s all. Probably like cocaine or something.”

Will thought of those eyes, the big dark ones…

_there’s something there._

“I’m going to study hall,” he said abruptly, shutting his binder. “It’s too loud out here.”

“Awww,” Lou Ellen moaned. “Stay. Calculus isn’t even due tomorrow.”

“I can always get a head start,” said Will, and he gathered his things and hurried off, almost hitting several unawares in his haste.

He sat alone in the library, his pencil tapping the paper, faster and faster, until he made a hole.

What was going on? He couldn’t concentrate. He could always get work done, but not now, apparently.

He wondered what Nico DiAngelo was doing right now. If he was in trouble. If he was high.

If he was okay.

He was glad when the bell rang, and his mind couldn’t wander anymore.

* * *

 

 

It took all of Nico’s concentration not to run out of the classroom once the teacher was done with him.

He had walked out with just a detention slip. For leaving class without permission.

Thank god. The teacher had been looking at him weird by the end there.

The clouds up above looked bloated, covering the sky. Was it going to rain?

_Fuck if I know._

But it was okay, it was okay, because he was free for a half hour and he wasn’t in trouble and he wasn’t dead. Figuratively. And literally. Yet.

And the best part was that he wasn’t stressed anymore. In fact, he wasn’t really thinking about anything.

It would go away soon. It always did, but this time he it wouldn’t last as long. Maybe until the end of the school day, if he was lucky.

He laughed. Luck was never on his side, was it?

Someone called his name in the close? distance and he turned around.

“Nico, what the fuck, man?”

“What, Octavian?” Nico was confused. Octavian looked like he had a fight to pick, but then again, he kind of always did. And besides, Nico was starting to feel tired. He didn’t have the energy to deal with this shit. “Octavian…”

“I heard you got expelled!”

“No, I’m still here…” Nico said slowly, waving his detention slip. “And alive.”

“Is is true? Are you high?”

“Are you high?”

“Fuck, man.”

“Yeah. Just a little. I needed it. I needed it really bad.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just needed it.”

“Watch yourself,” said Octavian, sighing. “I mean it. Don’t do reckless shit like this. Pull yourself together. If you get caught I’m probably going down too.”

“Sorry.”

“You better be. I would leave school now, because you’re obvious as fuck.”

“No, the teacher didn’t catch me.”

“Good. Keep it that way. If you keep doing stuff like this you can get your own prescription.”

“Please, no.”

Please, please, please no.

This was the only thing, the only thing that was keeping him sane. Alive, functioning… a million other words.

Nico’s mind was blown, and so were the proportions of everything, too big for him. He needed to get off his high and pull it together. But that wasn’t going to happen for a couple of hours.

“It won’t happen again and I’ll be more careful next time so I won’t get caught and please let me keep buying from you,” Nico said all in one gasp.

“Fine. You’re embarrassing. You should go home before you vomit or pass out or something.”

“Yeah, I think I will…” said Nico quietly.

Some place in the back of his mind told him that he had a test today, but it only floated by and he largely ignored it.

Octavian pushed past him and Nico was alone, but he suddenly felt claustrophobic.

He needed to leave, now.

He walked out behind the school to the soccer field, and he could feel the wind running through his hair.

For a minute he felt so unbearably sad, so unbearably fucked up, that he couldn’t breathe.

But then he remembered how tired he was, and that it all really didn’t matter.

He crawled through the hole in the fence and got to the parking lot. His keys fumbled in the lock. He felt like someone was watching him. He slammed the car door behind him and started the ignition. He sped out of the parking lot, not looking back to see if anyone was watching.

As he drove he let the feeling take over, the hollow-light feeling. It felt like nothing, but it was something, something that erased the mess in his brain and made it clean again, and he loved it. The road faded…

Somehow he made it home, and fell onto the couch.

When he woke up, he ran to the bathroom and vomited. His pacing had been irregular or something, he assumed.

But world was stark again, and his head hurt. It hurt like hell. He wasn’t high anymore. Somehow it was night time. No one was at home.

He looked at himself in the mirror. All he could see were two giant eyes staring at him, like sockets of a skull. As he looked, they seemed to grow larger, almost swallowing his face.

They looked at him as if to say,

_it’s all your fault._

Nico supposed he was saying that to himself.

He splashed water on his face, took a shower.

He didn’t feel like doing anything.

_It’s all your fault._


	2. Chapter 2

Nico stared at the test.

Was he still high?

No, he wasn’t. The pulsing at his temples told him that much. He always got headaches when he was clean.

He flipped to the second page. Maybe he could do that.

Nope.

And the third page, fourth page, fifth page… nope.

He turned back to the front.

Oh look, he could write his name.

But not the date. He wasn’t even sure what day it was. Yesterday had been awful. He had somehow resorted to using at school. Why had he even done that? Was he really that pathetic? He couldn’t hold it in for a couple more hours? He always could before. And yet yesterday he had essentially run out of the classroom because he couldn’t stand it any longer.

 

He didn’t want to admit to himself, but it scared him. Just a little.

It was just because of that damn Will Solace. Making him nervous or some shit.

_It’s my fault._

__

No, the teacher’s. For giving such a boring lesson.

_It’s my fault._

__

_Goddamnit!_

__

But it was fine, Nico thought. Because, starting today, he would never use at school again. Ever. Even if he really wanted to. Even if he felt like his whole brain was going to combust unless he got some buzz in his system, fast. And he was going to do this test.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. He knew exactly two characters by name. Romeo and Juliet.

He should have paid more attention. Well, it was too late now. Next time he would. Next time.

Next time.

Luckily the test was multiple choice. Nico tried to answer as arbitrarily as possible. Maybe by chance he would get a few right.

As a result, he was the first one done. Or rather, almost the first one done. Will got up from his seat the same time.

That bothered Nico. He was going to be the first.

_What the fuck? Are you in first grade?_

While he was thinking about it Will got to the desk first. So much for that.

The teacher took Will’s paper without question. When Nico handed his in she raised an eyebrow.

“You finished fast,” she said slowly.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Did you check your answers?”

“Yeah.”

The teacher scanned the paper.

“So you think that Juliet is in love with Mercutio?”

Nico rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. He was aware of the rest of the class watching the exchange. He supposed he didn’t really care, but still, he could just imagine what they were thinking.

_Drugs!_

“Yeah, that’s my interpretation of it,” Nico said, and with that he turned around and headed back to his desk, flipping the bird once his back was to the teacher.

That shut everyone up.

He got to his seat and brooded. Everyone had gone back to working.

Except for Will, who was… staring at him.

Nico looked at him through his bangs. He had used this trick many a time. His hair was dark and long enough that it could hide his eyes pretty well, if he pretended he was looking down. Will was just looking at him. Just looking. Probably wondering if he was high. Or, being Will, wondering how dare thou not study for the exam!

The thought made him smile, almost. It wasn’t any of Will’s fucking business.

And...he was still staring.

Still staring.

Nico looked up and waved sardonically.

He thought that Will would be annoyed, but instead Will blushed and almost fell out of his chair in his haste to look down.

But before that their eyes had caught for just a moment.

Just a small moment.

Suddenly Nico remembered that yesterday, when the teacher was talking to him, he had looked at Will. Eye to eye. So it wasn’t the first time. Well, he had been higher than the clouds at that point, to be fair.

But still, it gave Nico a dull shock. A sort of jolt in his stomach. And he wasn’t sure why.

It made him anxious. He shook it off.

He looked at Will now, who was determinedly looking down, his blond hair just barely falling into his eyes.

For a crazy second, Nico wondered what it would be like to touch that hair.

_I thought I had determined that I wasn’t tripping._

He shook the thought from his mind. Shook it hard.

Someone snapped in his face.

“Dude, what are you staring at?”

“Nothing!” Nico said, too loudly; the people around him shushed him. “Do your test, Jason.”

Nico wasn’t quite sure why Jason Grace talked to him. They were kind of opposites. Jason played on the football team, they looked nothing alike, and Jason was really popular. Not that Nico wasn’t, it was just that he was more… notorious. Yeah. He liked the sound of that. Notorious. But Jason wasn’t mean or anything, so Nico was fine with that.

And plus, there was his sister, Thalia. She was Nico’s type. She was cool. Much more Nico’s speed. He didn’t talk to her much, since she was a year younger, but still. He liked watching her walk around the halls. She always walked like she owned the place, like a strut. And she was hot. She knew it. So did everyone else. So Nico put up with Jason mostly because of that reason.

But also, to be honest, he was just glad that someone that wasn’t up to their nose in drugs and trouble wanted to talk to him once in a while.

“Were you staring at Will?” said Jason said, squinting to look at the other side of the classroom.

Maybe not that glad.

“No. Were you sacked the last game or something?”

“Don’t get all aggro on me, man! I was just asking!”

“Sorry,” mumbled Nico. “Finish your test.”

Nico sneaked another glance. Will still had his head down. He hadn’t heard.

“About yesterday- were you really high?”

Nico almost choked. Heading straight for his second lie in about ten seconds, here.

“People are assholes. No.”

“Then why did you run out of the classroom, then?”

“I didn’t run out of the classroom.”

“Why weren’t you in any other classes after lunch?”

“I don’t know! I was tired!”

“Because you were high?”

“No, because I was tired of people like you!” Nico didn’t care how loud he was at this point. “Turn around and do your work, Grace!”

“Nico, stop talking!” The teacher stood up from her desk. “Do you want detention again?”

I was telling Jason to be quiet!

Nico shook his head no and looked down at his desk. Jason started flicking pieces of paper into Percy Jackson’s hair.

Nico sighed. He was not looking forward to tomorrow. Or today. Or any other day, for that matter.

* * *

 

As expected, when Nico’s test was handed back, a big glaring F was staring back at him.

Why did they have to write it in red ink? To make it obvious? Please, Nico already knew what grade he got from the moment he handed it in.

However, he was not expecting what came next.

The teacher called him up to her desk right as class was about to end. Shit. The second time in three days.

“Yes?”

“Sit down.”

Nico sighed, and complied.

“Sit up straight.”

Nico raised an eyebrow.

“Do it.”

Nico did.

“So, this is the fourth test in a row you’ve completely failed.”

“I am aware.”

“At this rate, you’re not going to pass the class. You need it to graduate.”

“I am aware.”

“And so, you have to get a tutor.”

“No!”

Nico almost stood up. He was almost eighteen. Almost done with high school! He didn’t need a tutor.

But then it hit him what the teacher had said. If he didn’t get all his credits, he wouldn’t graduate. He was failing more than one class. He needed to graduate. He didn’t think he could stand being at school for one more year if he didn’t. He needed at least his high school diploma. Just that. And then he would never have to go to school again.

But he didn’t want a tutor. He didn’t need help from anyone. He helped himself.

“I don’t want a tutor. I don’t need one.”

“Well, it’s not an option. We have our tutoring program here at school with student volunteers. I already signed you up.”

“You already signed me up? I have work after school.”

That wasn’t a lie. Nico did have work. At the diner.

“How is it, Nico, that you can hold down a job, and yet can’t be responsible enough to do any of your school work?”

Nico knew the answer to that.

He didn’t need school.

But he needed the bus boy job, even though he hated it, because he needed money.

What did he need money for?

Nobody had to know.

Especially not the teacher.

He must have fallen silent, because the teacher continued.

“What happened to you, Nico? You used to be such a good student in your freshman and sophomore year.”

Nico swallowed.

“I just feel like it doesn’t have a point anymore?”

It sounded sad, and pathetic; he knew it, and the teacher didn’t even reprimand him. Instead, she shook her head.

It wasn’t a complete lie. It didn’t feel like it had a point anymore. Nothing felt like it had a point anymore, a reason to try.

Nico knew what had happened to him.

It was his life, plain and simple.

_Destiny!_

It was his destiny to die young or in prison or washed up in an alleyway. Because he had always been heading that way. Everything that had happened in his life up to now was a reminder of that, another security for his future. At first he had tried to resist it. He thought maybe, if he worked hard, he could change it. But no, the bad stuff kept happening.

But there was one escape, and that was in a pill that released forgetfulness and lust and tiredness and glory into his system, when he was so hopeless he didn’t care anymore.

Now he had a reason to care. He cared about the pill.

That was it, the only only only thing.

“School does have a point. It helps you get into college and have a good life,” the teacher persisted.

Nico laughed. He didn’t mean to, it just came out.

“It’s not funny. You know what, Nico, have you looked into counseling? I’ve read your files, you know, and it might be a good thing for you.”

“Yeah, I have,” Nico lied.

“Good. You know, the teaching staff is all here to help you. We want you to succeed.” The teacher’s voice had changed. She was being sympathetic. She felt bad for Nico, he knew. It was canceling out her annoyance. And he didn’t have the heart to remain angry.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

Though he was sure he would never talk to any teacher about his problems, ever. He knew that they would feel sorry for him, what with all the things in his life. He knew they would mean well, but he didn’t like sympathy. At least not from adults.

“So, I’ve assigned you to Will. He’s in this class, you know him.”

“What?!”

Nico was hit with a whole different set of emotions.

Will Solace?

How could he say that he didn’t want to work with him because he had an… internal conflict with him? I don’t want to work with Will because he has the life that I wanted to have and that annoys me. Now he sounded like a lunatic. Way to go, Nico. He leaned in closer to the desk and lowered his voice.

“Is there any way I can get a different tutor?”

The teacher frowned. “I think Will would be good for you. He’s one of our school’s top students. And he’s patient.”

Nico looked over at Will, who was diligently working on god knows what. What on earth would possess someone to work like that? Did he think his life depended on it or something?

Oh, this was not going to go well.

“Fine, okay,” Nico said. He could tell that the teacher wasn’t going to budge. Why would she, she thought that Will was sent straight from the heavens. As did every other teacher.

_Why the fuck is he so perfect??_

“Go talk to him now. The bell’s going to ring any second.”

“Does he know? That he’s supposed to tutor me?”

“No, but he’s in the program. He’s used to this kind of thing. Just go up and set up a time.”

“But…”

“Do it.”

“Fine.”

* * *

**  
** Will was putting his things away into his bag when he saw someone walk up next to him. Well, their shoes anyway. Some really faded old Converse. If they had been a color at one point, Will didn’t know. **  
**

He looked up.

Standing there was Nico DiAngelo. Nico DiAngelo who he couldn’t stop wondering about two days ago. And yesterday. And admittedly still today.

“Hey.”

Is he talking to me?

“Hey, Will.”

He is.

“Oh, hi, Nico.”

Nico stood there awkwardly as the rest of the class filed out. The bell had rung. He had strangely pale skin, as if it was originally darker, somehow. He was skinny. He was wearing an aviator jacket sizes too big, which, come to think of it, he had worn almost every day since freshman year.

And his eyes… big and dark and hard to know.

Will moved away a little, scooting to the far end of his seat. He saw the corners of Nico’s mouth tighten.

“So, Mrs. Carver wants you to be my tutor.”

“Me… be your tutor?”

“Trust me, I said the same thing,” Nico said, shifting his feet uncomfortably.

Will’s mind raced. He didn’t want to tutor Nico DiAngelo. He didn’t want to be near Nico, who everyone said did drugs and went to ragers and other bad things, who walked the halls like a ghost, the people parting for him.

But there was a part of him that wanted to, a part that was curious, a part of him that wanted to know everything there was to know about the boy in front of him.

He was scared of Nico. He didn’t particularly even like him. He, Will Solace, did not associate with these types of people.

So he should just forget about wanting to find out what was behind those eyes. But he really wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” Will got out, “My schedule is pretty full.”

Nico sighed. “Mrs. Carver made it seem like we didn’t have a choice.”

Will hesitated, and Nico saw.

“Look, I’m going to fail this class. And my other ones too. And if I fail, I don’t graduate. Just… please help me.”

That was the last thing Will had expected.

He looked at Nico. He couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

But Will wanted to help him.

He supposed Nico was just a person, like everybody else. He didn’t have inhuman desires or feelings. So maybe he deserved to be treated as such.

You know, Will was going to treat him like he would treat anyone else.

Maybe he would be the first one at this school to do so, and that was fine with him.

“Okay, sure. When are you available?”

“I work from 5-9 on weekdays.”

“So… do you want to do it after school like two days a week?”

“Uh, sure.”

This wasn’t going too bad.

_I can do this! Maybe he’s not so scary after all!_

“Cool, just give me your number and we’ll figure it out from there.”

“My number?”

Nico sounded surprised, almost repulsed.

Will’s heart sank a little.

“I mean, if you don’t want to-”

“No, it’s fine. Here.”

He took one of Will’s pens and scribbled it down on the corner of his paper.

“Just...text me or something.”

And with that, Nico DiAngelo left, just as silently as he had come.

 


	3. Chapter 3

It was six in the morning, and Will stood in front of the mirror.

He always got up early, to do this or that. He liked being prepared.

But never to figure out what to wear.

On principle, Will had never put much thought into his clothes. It wasn’t like he had a great sense of style or anything. His parents had mandated his wardrobe for a long time when he was little, and Will supposed he never really grew out of it. Not that his parents would let him wear some of the stuff the kids at school did. And not that Will really cared.

But today he did. Just a little.

Maybe just a bit more than a little.

This was ridiculous.

Why did he care what Nico DiAngelo thought of him?

It wasn’t like Will was suddenly going to wake up one day and be cool. A good three years of building his reputation as _Will Solace, academic extraordinaire!_  had told him that much. Nico wasn’t going to throw away a whole high school’s experience worth of judgment just because Will showed up wearing some cool shoes.

Will looked into the mirror. His hair was all over the place. He looked tired; he had stayed up late studying with a can of Red Bull. His desk was a mess. He knew he should clean it before his parents saw, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

Today was his first day tutoring Nico diAngelo.

And Will already cared way too much.

He wasn’t sure why he felt like he needed to impress Nico. Maybe to convince him that hey, school can be cool! But no, that wasn’t true. It was a need that Will couldn’t place. It made him nervous, Nico made him nervous. This whole thing was a bad idea. Obviously Nico couldn’t care less about his grades.

But maybe it wasn’t so obvious. Sure, maybe to everyone else, but...

_Just...please help me._

Will had been surprised; he had been confused. He still was. And to look in Nico’s eyes and see something, something shining and rough and deep, had been a shock. But it hadn’t been the first time. Will had been thinking about those eyes for a while now.

And anyway, he had made up his mind. He was going to help Nico. He was going to treat him like he would anyone else. Like he would a friend. Well, maybe not that. He probably did not want to be friends with Will. Will didn’t even know if Nico wanted to be friends with him.

He couldn’t help but feel that Nico DiAngelo was a mystery to be solved.

And he, Will Solace, was going to solve it.

He read every single Sherlock Holmes book ever written. He could do this!

Will sighed.

And that was one of the many reasons why Nico would probably not like him.

He gave up and put on his normal clothes. Someone had told him once that he dressed like a thirty year old dad, what with his seemingly endless supply of collared shirts and polos. It couldn’t be helped. Let Nico think what he wanted. Maybe he would be high and wouldn’t notice how terrible Will was.

_You don't know if he does drugs or not._

That was true. Will wasn’t one to believe rumors. But that one had been around since sophomore year.

_What if he tries to sell_ me  _drugs??_

Will flopped down on his bed, looking at the ceiling. That wasn’t going to happen. He was rushing to conclusions, yet again. It wasn’t like the topics of drugs or sex or alcohol were going to come up in normal conversation. But with Nico, who knew. Will had never hung out with those types of people before.

There he went again, getting nervous. How many times was he going to do this? He had already decided his plan of action. He was going to be nice and polite to Nico. His usual boring self.

He had texted Nico the other day, asking about tutoring times.

It had not gone fantastic.

 

Will: Hey, do you want to set up a date?

Nico: What?

Will: ...for tutoring. Sorry.

Nico: oh

Will: so…

Nico: tuesday

Will: Mrs. Carver said we had to have it two days a week. And you agreed to it.

Nico: did I

Will: yeah

Nico: tuesday and thursday

Will: what time?

Nico: I don’t know. after school

Will: sure

Will: wait, what time specifically

Will: and where

 

Nico had not responded after that. The whole conversation had been like pulling teeth.

So Will assumed that he would just wait in the English classroom after school. If Nico showed.

Will got up and cleaned his desk. There wasn’t anything else to do but worry. He looked outside; the sun was coming up. There was a dog walker crossing the street. Will had always wanted a dog, but his parents had said it would mess up the house. Not like it could do any lasting damage. Their housekeeper came twice a week. Plus, Will wouldn’t have time to play with a dog anyway.

Will went downstairs. His parents were already in the kitchen, as per usual. His mom was cooking bacon. His dad was reading the newspaper, and didn’t look up. Will said hello, and he nodded.

A short while later breakfast was on the table. Hands were linked and grace was said.

As usual, Will’s father asked him a question. Will had come to label it as “question number one.” It was asked at breakfast. Every day. Without fail.

“What are your plans today?”

“Question number two” was how did your day go? That was asked at dinner, if everyone was at the table.

“I have to tutor someone, and then I have tennis and piano.”

“Who are you tutoring?”

Will stabbed at toast with his fork. “Just this boy from my class.”

“What is he like?” asked his mother.

“He’s... “

Do you want me to say what I think or what everyone else thinks?

“He’s alright, I guess.”

She nodded. Not another word was said the entire meal.

Will said goodbye, then left as fast as he possibly could.

He threw all his things in the backseat of his car sped off, before realizing that he was probably way over the speed limit. He didn’t know why he was driving so fast anyway. It wasn’t like he was in a giant hurry to get to school.

He tried to plan out his schedule in his head. He couldn’t spend too long tutoring, maybe like an hour maximum. At least he had a valid excuse if he wanted to leave early. He had tennis practice at four thirty, and then piano at seven. And then he had homework. So much homework.

Sometimes he wished he could just be like Nico and just not do homework, but that would not go down well for Will. Not well at all.

He parked his car in the student parking lot, then went into history class. As usual, he was the first one there. Everyone else was outside talking in the halls.

Will sat down at his desk and started working.

* * *

 

It was after school, and Will sat in the English classroom, tapping his feet. And drumming his pencil against the desk. And just being generally nervous.

He watched the clock, the seconds hand passing the minute hand, and then the hour. Again and again until Will got dizzy from looking. It had only been five minutes and twenty two seconds since the bell had rung. It felt like thirty.

Exactly seven minutes and forty two seconds after that, Nico DiAngelo walked into the classroom.

He was wearing what he always did, the too-big jacket and dark clothes. If Will had thought he had looked tired this morning, then Nico looked worse. He sat down next to Will, propped his chin on his hand, and spoke.

“So. Let’s get this over with.”

Will was taken aback. He was the one donating his time, not Nico. But still, he took out his materials with a slightly shaky hand and waited for Nico to do the same. He didn’t move.

“Where are your things?” Will asked.

“I don’t have them on me,” Nico said, meeting Will’s eyes, challenging him. It worked, Will got even more nervous. One because Nico was scary; two, because of the eye contact. Well, Will wasn’t going to let Nico win that easily. He held his gaze. To his surprise, Nico bit his lip and looked away out the windows.

Will handed him a sheet of paper and a pencil.

“Here. You can take notes.”

Nico accepted without comment.

“So, tell me what you know about Romeo and Juliet.”

Nico looked at him strangely. Will watched, almost transfixed, as his fingers crawled to the edge of the desk. He had weirdly delicate hands, with long fingers and quick, graceful, movements.

“It was written by Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet fall in love. End of story.”

Nico stopped inching his fingers along and slid them back to the paper. Will noticed that he seemed to fidget a lot, almost like he needed to do so. Will supposed that he did himself, but only when he was nervous. With Nico it was more of a constant thing. His fingers arched like dancers. Will tore his gaze away.

“Did you even read the play?” he asked, slightly annoyed. More than reading; he was pretty sure that everyone over the age of ten knew more about Romeo and Juliet than what Nico had just demonstrated.

“No,” Nico responded simply. “It didn’t interest me.”

“But we read it out loud in class,” argued Will. “I read it out loud in class.”

“I didn’t listen.”

“Do you even know what happens at the end?”

“No.”

“Do you know what happens at the beginning?”

“No.”

“Do you know what happens in between.”

“Not really.”

“Are you going to cooperate at all?”

Will said it a lot louder than he meant to, and he immediately felt bad. But not that bad, because he was starting to be annoyed. Like really annoyed.

If Nico was surprised to have been reprimanded, he hid it quickly. But Will saw, saw his eyebrow raise just a little before he returned to his normal I’m Nico DiAngelo and I don’t give a crap expression. It irked Will. What made him think he was so cool? The stupid chains on his jeans?

He took a deep breath. He was here to tutor. He was a professional. Mrs. Carver was counting on him.

_Remember what you thought this morning._

Nico was silent, but he picked up his pencil and got ready to write.

Will sighed. He might as well move on.  “Well, you can tell a lot from this play from just the first passage. It’s basically the synopsis.

“Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents̓ strife.

The fearful passage of their death-marked love

And the continuance of their parents̓ rage,

Which but their children̓s end, naught could remove,

Is now the two-hours̓ traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

“So, what does that tell you?”

“That...Romeo and Juliet kill themselves. And their parents fight. And that there’s just a general death vibe going on.”

Will smiled. “Exactly. It’s a tragedy. So, let’s start with the first act. There’s plenty of themes, but let’s start with allusions. So, give me an example.”

“Really?” Nico said.

“What?”

“Why would we start with allusions?’”

“I don’t know, Nico,” said Will, his voice tight  with impatience. “Maybe because it’s important.”

“How important can it be?” asked Nico, leafing through the pages of Will’s copy of the play. “When later in life will someone ask me if I can identify the themes and allusions in a Shakespeare play?”

Will was flustered. “I don’t know! Maybe in college.”

Nico leaned forward in his desk.

“I don’t want to go to college.”

Nico smiled, his face only about half a foot from Will’s. Will swallowed.

“Well, that makes sense,” he muttered, moving away. To his relief, Nico did the same.

Will seethed. What did Nico think he was playing at? All Will was trying to do was be nice, to help Nico. And Nico had to go and repay him… like this. Whatever he was doing.

He seemed to like to play with Will’s head. And Will found it hard to keep him out.

“Why, Mr. Solace, I should think that you would have a better lesson plan.”

Will couldn’t keep it in any longer. Screw professionalism.

“You’re a dick,” he blurted out.

“And you’re a bad tutor,” Nico responded, not even dropping a beat.

They sat there for a moment, waiting for someone to make the next move.

Instead, Nico simply smiled, wetting his lips slightly with his tongue. Will’s stomach jolted.

_What the heck is going on with me?_

Will grabbed the book from Nico and flipped open to the first page.

“Here, read this. Don’t stop until you’ve read all of Scene 1.”

“Okay,” Nico said, and to Will’s surprise he did just that. When he was done Will asked him to summarize it.

“Shakespeare basically illustrates the setting. The families are fighting, Romeo’s all depressed because the girl he wants to bang is going to stay a virgin forever.”

“Basically,” Will said. “Now-”

“Are you a virgin?”

Will’s head spun.

“What?”

“Have you had sex?”

Will looked down at the desk, positive his cheeks were turning red.

“None of your business,” he said quickly.

Nico smiled. “You’re easy to mess with, you know?”

“What- shut up,” said Will. “Just read the next scene.”

He was embarrassed. Very embarrassed. He shouldn’t be, but he was. He didn’t like talking, even thinking about the topic. Sex. He was a boy, he should be comfortable with it. Heck, he should like talking about it. Watch porn, all that stuff. What normal high school boys did. But he didn’t, and though he didn’t like to admit it, it scared him somewhat.

He had never even kissed someone before.

And stupid Nico DiAngelo had to go and mess around with his head and be crass and rude and awful when Will was just trying to do his job.

And as Will looked at him, his dark hair falling in his eyes, the ghost of a smile on his face, he knew that Nico was doing it on purpose.

But what had Will ever done to him?

That was what he couldn’t figure out.

Nico read the scenes, summarized them in a way that Will begrudgingly accepted. He wasn’t stupid. But he was lazy and biting and probably more than a little mean.

And yet Will was still drawn to him, and he couldn’t figure out why. It bothered him. It was counter-logic. Will had read enough books to know that people like Nico were never good.

But it was probably because Nico was the type of person he was. He was an enigma. He was a complex. He was dust in the wind, a broken glass, a shadow; but mostly a mystery that Will couldn’t for the life of him figure out.

But Will had figured out one thing, and that was that he didn’t like Nico diAngelo at all. Not one bit.

****  



	4. Chapter 4

Will Solace was fun to mess with.

Nico thought it was hilarious.

The first day he had been maybe ten minutes late. This time, when he finally stomped into the classroom, no supplies in hand, it was three thirty. Half an hour late! Take a suck of that, Solace!

Nico hadn’t done much to fill the time. He had loitered by the water fountain, watching people pass in the halls, until he saw Thalia Grace. Then he had somewhat followed her until she turned around and faced him, narrow eyes looking lazily under her thick lashes.

“Nico,” she said.

__

_God, her voice sounds like sex._

“Thalia.”

“Were you following me?”  

The corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly.

“Maybe.”

She had smiled, really smiled then, and Nico watched as she turned around and walked away. He saw her piercings blink in the light. And then she was gone, and he was left standing there.

_Thalia Grace._

He felt a buzzing in his head that had nothing to do with pills.

He was about to run after her when he remembered.  

__

_Oh yeah, I have tutoring._

__

_Fuck._

And so Nico had walked into the English classroom late. Again.

Will was mad. Again.

As Nico slid into his seat Will glared at him, his brow furrowing slightly. It looked slightly off, almost like he didn’t know how to be angry. As if it was an unnatural expression for him. Nico found it funny. He laughed.

Will’s would-be scowl deepened. “What’s so funny?”

Nico resisted the urge to say _your face_. They were not twelve.

“Nothing is funny.”

“Then why did you laugh?”

Nico cocked his head to the side. “I was laughing at my life. One could say it's pretty laughable.”

Will’s expression changed to one of confusion, and then concern. He opened his mouth to say something, but Nico cut him off before he could say anything personal. He hated personal.

“Never mind. It’s a joke.”

Will nodded, not looking convinced. Nico started his hand drumming on the table. It was making him nervous, the way Will was looking at him now, so intently. His eyes were blue and wide and readable, like the sky. Nico was reminded of Thalia. But her blue was different, they gleamed as they shifted; they were darker. Will’s were just blue, constantly bright, framed by long eyelashes that Nico was pretty sure should have belonged to a girl. He watched as they blinked once, twice; fluttering open and close.

__

_Woah, snap out of it._

“Aren’t you going to ask why I was late?” Nico said quickly, looking away.

“Okay,” Will said with feigned patience.  “Why were you late?”

That tone was annoying. It reminded Nico of his sixth grade teacher, who had always tried to “connect” with him. It had not worked.

“I was talking to Thalia,” Nico lied. Well, not lied. It was half the truth. But for some reason he felt the need to show off, to seem cool.

“What was so pressing that it made you late?” Will asked, smirking.

“You know, things.” He emphasized the last word, hoping to imply sex. That had not happened, at all, but Will wouldn’t know. Would he?

He needn’t worry. Will didn’t even know what he was lying about.

“What things?” he asked, looking confused.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”

God, that was fucking cheesy. Wasn’t that fucking cheesy?

Will simply rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t get the big deal with Thalia anyway. She’s just a girl.”

“She’s a hot girl,” Nico said. “You don’t think she’s hot?”

“Not really,” Will mumbled, fixing his papers. He looked like he was trying to avoid the topic. Nico wasn’t going to give him that one.

“Which girls do you think are hot, then?”

Will paused, his eyes still fixed to the desk.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you _gay_?”

It was then that Will looked up at him sharply, eyes flashing. Nico leaned back slightly, surprised.

“I don’t know, Nico, are _you_ gay?”

“What? Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” Nico stammered, trying to backtrack. God, he was just messing with Will. He didn’t have to take it so seriously.

“Then what did you mean?”

“I- I don’t know.”

Will sighed and went back to doing whatever he had been pretending to do. It occurred to Nico suddenly that Will’s hands were shaking slightly, and that… so were his own. Nico gripped the edges of his seat, trying to stop it.

He realized that neither one of them had said that they weren’t gay.

“I’m not gay, though,” Nico pushed out. “But if you are… that’s cool.”

“Well, I’m not,” Will said flatly.

Nico nodded mutely. He could feel the ghost of a headache starting to creep into his head. He hadn’t used since yesterday morning. Over twenty four hours… he used to be able to go for longer. These days it was getting harder. He could almost see the plastic bag deep in his jacket pocket. He imagined them sliding down his throat, roughly at first, then softly, then nothing, nothing at all.

He shifted his position. An hour to go. Then he could go home. Only an hour. But as he looked at the clock, it seemed that it was slow. Actually, he was sure of it. Had the seconds hand ever gone that slow? Thank god the bell wouldn’t ring again. He was pretty sure that it would break his eardrum if it did.

Will was thumbing through a copy of something. Lots of highlighting.

“What’s that?” Nico asked.

“It’s my script for Romeo and Juliet.”

“Your script? Are you in a play?”

“Yeah, Nico, the school play. There’s been posters up for forever.”

“Oh.” Nico felt slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t know the school was doing it too. Well, who are you?”

“I’m Romeo,” Will said, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Wow, lead role. I’m guessing you’ve acted before.”

“Yeah. I was in Peter Pan last year.”

“Who were you then?”

“Peter Pan.”

The thought of Will dressed up in tights and boots made Nico laugh. To his surprise, Will smiled too.

“It was actually pretty funny. My dad was not pleased with that outfit. He almost didn’t let me do Romeo and Juliet.”

“Why?” Nico asked. “Just because of the clothes?”

Will looked away. “No. Well, kind of. He just thinks theater is…at least for guys… kind of gay, I guess.”

There it was, that word again.

“That’s lame,” Nico said.

“Yeah, well, he came around once I convinced him it would look good on my college application.”

“What college do you want to go to?”

“I want to go to Columbia,” Will said, brightening somewhat.

“Isn’t that Ivy League?”

“Yeah,” said Will. He was smiling slightly now. “But I really want to go. It has a great med school, too. I want to be a doctor.”

When he said doctor, his face seemed to light up. Funny.

“A doctor?” Nico smirked. “So you want to make a lot of money.”

“No, I want to help people.” Will hadn’t even seemed to notice Nico’s tone.

Why was Will so excited about all this? He seemed almost radiant. Somehow, it wasn’t annoying Nico. It was almost… nice.

Will had a future. He was excited about it, whether he would achieve it or not. But he wasn’t looking at failure, it seemed. There wasn’t going to be that, no, he was going to get into that school, he was going to be a doctor, and he would have a nice family and a nice house and would go on helping people until the day he died.

And he had just decided that that was how it was going to be?

And that it was going to be true?

To Nico, that was pretty incredible.

He was so sure of himself.

But, Nico reminded himself.

_So am I._

__

_I am also sure of what my life will be._

Drugs are a great security for the future.

Nico was sure he was going to hate life just as sure as Will was that he was going to love it.

For a moment that difference seemed so vast, so unbreachable, that Nico balked.

But somehow, it didn’t seem that way.

In that sense, they weren’t that different at all. Oh, the irony.

__

_I want to help people._

__

_Do you think you could help me?_

It was a crazy thought, and Nico tried to push it from his mind before he realized that he had already asked.

Will and him were never going to be friends. Will was annoying. He was rule obsessed. They were complete opposites.

But in some obscure part of Nico’s mind, he wanted to be close to Will.

Those long eyelashes were opening and closing, hiding and releasing those pieces of sky…

“That’s nice,” Nico said finally. “Being a doctor. That’s great. I hope you get to do that.”

“Really?” Will looked surprised.

_Am I really that mean?_

__

Nico supposed he was.

Will broke into a smile. “Thanks!”

__

_Warm_

__

_Is it hot in here?_

Nico let out something between a sigh and a gasp, caught in his throat. He quickly turned it into a cough.

Shit, he was acting weird. It was probably because had been clean for so long. It felt like forever. Surely the hour was almost up. He looked at the clock.

__

_Five minutes???_

Nico inhaled and exhaled.

“Are you okay?” asked Will.

“Wha- yeah, I’m totally fine.”

Again, Will looked like he didn’t believe him. But he moved on. Thank god.

“I’m guessing you didn’t bring your supplies.”

“No…”

Nico’s hands were shaking worse now; he slid them under his legs. This had never happened before. Usually he just got uncomfortable, but this…

He wondered if what he was feeling triggered his need. Maybe it was true. If so, then it might have been the second time Will Solace made him nervous enough to feel like this. That had never happened before either, not with anybody. What was it about Will, then?

“Hey, you know what?” Nico said, standing up. “I’m going to go get my things out of my locker”

“Okay,” Will nodded, marking his script with a highlighter. “Hurry back.”

Nico murmured something that he hoped sounded like okay, or yes. He hurried out of the room. Maybe Will would interpret that as obeying instructions. But he wasn’t even looking up.

The halls seemed narrow, like they were closing in on Nico as he walked. He was wildly reminded of the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; he thought there had been a scene like this. Maybe. Oh, he needed to relax his thoughts. He wanted to sleep.

__

_Wait, what are you doing?_

__

_You can’t use at school. Again._

__

_You promised yourself._

__

_You need to go back to tutoring._

__

_There is someone waiting for you._

__

_Will is waiting for you._

Nico thought on that for a minute.

_Fuck it all!!!_

No, that wasn’t right.

Okay. This would be the last time. One more time, and then never again at school.

_That’s what I said last time._

He desperately tried to rationalize it in his head, but the only thing he concluded was that he needed it. To survive? Maybe.

Oh, what was the point anymore.

He crept into the bathroom and into a stall. There was no one there, luckily. Well, it was after school.

There it was!

It was after school! It wasn’t _during_ school. So Nico could take his medicine, and it would be fine.

Right?

He tried not to think about it too much. He _couldn’t_ think about too much.

He slid down the wall to the ground. The tiles were cold.

From the depths of his over large jacket he pulled out the plastic bag. There were some twenty pills rustling in the bottom. Octavian had just given them to him this morning, charging Nico fifteen more dollars than last time. Nico had given it to him anyways.

Money. That reminded Nico, he had to go to work after this. How else was he going to pay Octavian next time?

So that meant that he could only take one cap. He usually took two at a time, sometimes three, sometimes two and then later two again. He really wanted to take more. He wanted to crush the cap, to inhale it so he would be there, BAM!, on like a light and off like a light all at the same time.

He was spouting nonsense. The last bit of rational thought told him to only take one, so he did.

Just one would take a while to kick in. A while for Nico, anyway.

He dry swallowed it as usual. His throat felt grainy.

He wondered if he should go back to the classroom.

He didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t feel like it anymore, besides.

He thought of Will, waiting for him to come back. Probably highlighting like a madman, with his concentration face he always had when he was working.

Oh, Will Solace. There is hope for you yet.

How lucky. How wonderful for you. And how fucking terrible for me.

Yeah, Nico definitely wasn’t going to go back to class.

He realized something though, at that was that he didn’t hate Will at all.

Maybe he kind of liked him. Maybe just a little.

Or maybe he was just starting to get high. He wasn’t sure.

But still, it was a feeling he couldn’t erase as he walked to his car.

__

_Warm?_

He got home and went to work. He felt terrible the whole time. One cap had made him tired, but not tired enough to feel anything good out of it.

It was like he was floating in the space before a high, like he was waiting for it to kick in and it never did. He couldn’t believe he used to only take one pill at a time. This wasn’t working for him at all. Maybe he had taken it so long that he was used to it now.

He remembered the first time he had seen it.

It was after school one day, in sophomore year. Nico had always had problems since Bianca… and his mom didn’t have enough money to get him anything for it.

And so it was that Octavian told them that he had the fix, the solution, a miracle pill that would solve all Nico’s problems. He used it himself, he said. Nico could get it cheap, he said. It was called Vicodin, and it wasn’t even illegal. Technically.

Nico didn’t care. He took it.

Octavian had told him two lies.

It wasn’t cheap.

And it didn’t fix Nico.

Maybe temporarily, but Nico had enough sense left to know, that no, it hadn’t fixed him, instead it had made it worse.

And he knew all this, and yet, he didn’t want to stop.

Maybe the pills had cut a cord in his brain, something that connected everything to make it all make sense. Because to Nico, it seemed like his brain was shutting down. His body was shutting down. His everything was shutting down, falling in feathered pieces to the ground like ash from a fading fire.

He thought of Will again, so solid, so warm, so there.

Nico was floating away.

He scrubbed the restaurant toilet with a ferocity, trying to feel something. It just made his arms ache.

By the time he clocked out, he was finally tired.

Mission accomplished.

****  
  



	5. Chapter 5

“So there’s a test next week.”

“I am aware.”

“Did you do the work I asked you over the weekend?”

It was with slight pride that Nico said he had.

The feeling strengthened when he saw Will smile, look genuinely pleased.

Would you look at that. If it was that easy to make Will happy Nico wondered why he hadn’t done it before.

Maybe because he was stoned. Yeah, that was probably it.

He had texted Will a lame excuse from the day he had left, something about not feeling well. That had been true at the time, he supposed. Still, not totally true. But it was okay, because since then he had gotten himself somewhat under control. For the first time in months, he was back on a regular schedule. So it seemed. In his heart of hearts Nico knew it wouldn’t last. But it was working for now, and Nico knew it was better to take these type of things one day at a time.

And so it was that on Sunday he had gritted his teeth, sat down in the middle of his bed, and poured out the contents of his backpack onto the sheets. There wasn’t much in there; a few assorted pens and pencils along with the occasional food wrapper and crumpled paper. He had exactly one notebook. That he took out, opened, and stared at the first page.

It seemed an alien gesture. Homework? What was that? The teachers had basically given up on making him do anything. He only did anything school related when it was absolutely necessary. And through this strategy he had managed to barely pass his classes for most of high school. Until this year. This year was harder. What kind of teachers would make the last year the worst? But somehow they had, and Nico was feeling it. Hard.

Will had written out notes for him. His hand writing looked like a girl’s, all straight and neat and loopy. What kind of idiots still wrote in cursive? It took double the effort for Nico to decipher it.

But he had done it, he had done the stupid work.

And now it was Tuesday, and Nico handed the mound of papers to Will, who took it with a strong grip.

“You should organize more,” he said, leafing through the sheets. “It would make things a lot easier for you.”

“How about no?” Nico said. “I did the work. That’s good enough.”

“It’s never enough to be ‘good enough,’ “ Will responded. “The only way you can get ahead is to go up and beyond.”

“Well, I apologize.”

_Not._

__

Will hadn’t seemed to noticed Nico’s sarcasm.

“It’s okay, just do it next time.”

Nico watched as Will’s eyes slowly scanned down the paper, his face showing nothing. Why was he going so slow? Nico just needed to know if he did it right or not. Will was treating this like it was the SATs or something.

“Well?”

“It’s not bad,” Will said.

“Not bad?” Nico yelped. “I spent hours on that thing. You owe me more than that.”

Will smiled. “No, it’s actually pretty good. You seem to understand everything. It just reads… casual.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yeah you do. You just don’t want to admit that you did something wrong.”

“What?! I-” Nico stopped. “Fine. Help me, then.”

Will laughed. It was a nice sound, Nico thought. Not annoying at all. It was a rich laugh, a full one, and it made Will seem strangely older. More mature. Nico wasn’t sure how laughter could do that, but somehow it did. It seemed easy coming out of Will’s mouth, a reflex, a well-worn tool used often. How it should be. It was only with Nico that laughter seemed like a rusty machine, creaking to life only once in a blue moon.

But Will made him laugh. It had been a while since Nico had had a reason to.

So what did that mean…

Nico wasn’t sure, but he knew that he liked hearing Will laugh.

And with laughter came a smile, and Will sure did have one of those.

It occurred to Nico that he had been thinking about Will’s face a lot. Just how it moved and functioned, how it flicked from expression to expression. Will seemed to have a lot of emotions. Nico did too, he supposed, but he was better at hiding them. Will wasn’t. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

That would be nice, Nico thought. Not having to worry about hiding what you felt.

But it made one more vulnerable, and that was something that Nico could not afford. With Will, however, Nico felt like one good insult would leave him reeling for days.

Not that Nico would insult him. He was pretty sure he had progressed past the _I hate Will Solace_ stage.

What was left was a grudging tolerance but a growing curiosity, and he had the strangest suspicion that Will felt the same way.

_Curiosity._

What kind of curiosity was it? Nico didn’t know.

Was it the how he felt about Thalia Grace?

It felt vaguely the same, but Nico knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be the same. Will was a guy, and Thalia was a girl.

He wasn’t _attracted_ to Will. Not in that way.

And yet he was, was attracted to him, in the sense that he wanted to see him. To be near him. Heck, he had even been kind of impatient for the school day to end so that he could come to tutoring.

For tutoring? Since when had Nico actually been excited for school work?

The answer was never. He was never excited for homework.

So that must been that he had been impatient to see Will.

The thought almost made his dizzy.

He looked at Will now, correcting Nico’s paper with a red pen from his endless supply. He was wearing a polo shirt and khakis. It honestly amazed Nico how Will managed to dress like an old person and a little kid at the same time. But it didn’t look too bad, actually. Will was… fairly good looking, and if Nico looked closer, he could see the faint sprinkling of freckles across his straight nose-

“What are you doing?” Will asked.

“What?”

“You were staring at me.”

“Was I…”

Nico broke out of his stupor suddenly, left with only a few remnants of what he had been thinking about. But it was enough to know that he had been thinking about Will in a weird way. In a very weird way. A way that Will needn’t know about any time soon or ever.

Why had he been thinking that way? There was literally anything else to think about, and Nico had chosen to ruminate on the structure of Will’s face.

_Think about Thalia. Think about the shirt she had on yesterday._

Nico couldn’t concentrate.

_Damn you, Will Solace!_

And now Will was looking at him, looking at him oddly.

“Now who’s the one staring?”

Will blinked. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Silence.

“So,” Will begun hastily. “Not too bad on your homework. I think you’ll do well on the test.”

“Really?”

“Really. I believe in you.”

_I believe in you._

__

It had been a long time since someone had told him that.

“Thanks,” Nico said softly.

“No problem,” said Will. “Just doing my job.”

“You don’t even get paid,” Nico said. “What’s the point, then?”

As he said it Nico knew what the answer would be. Maybe he just wanted to hear Will say it again.

“I like helping people.”

“That seems like a romantic notion,” said Nico. “You can’t really believe that.”

“But I do,” Will said. “That’s like, the only thing I know for sure.”

“The only thing?”

“Well yeah,” Will thought for a moment. “If I can believe that, I have this theory that everything else will just kind of fall into place.”

“I don’t get that,” Nico said. “How can you be that positive?”

Will frowned. “The world’s not _bad_ , Nico.”

Nico scoffed.

“It’s not, it’s really not. No one’s completely a bad person. There’s no such thing.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Nico, are you talking about _yourself_?”

Nico glanced up at him then, caught somewhere between having wanted to laugh and now being stunned into silence by the way Will was looking at him.

“Of course not,” Nico said quickly.

Lies.

“I just think differently,” he finished.

“You’re wrong,” Will said, “I’ll show you one day, Nico DiAngelo.”

“And how do you intend to do that?”

“By proving that _you_ aren’t all that bad.”

Will had seen through him. He hadn’t even batted an eye. He could just see.

Nico swallowed, wetting his lips with his tongue.

“You don’t know me,” he said finally.

“Maybe not yet,” said Will.

“And what makes you think you will?”

“I’m quite a determined person, if I do say so myself.”

“But…why?” Nico asked. “Why do you want to get to know me?”

“Because you’re interesting,” Will asked. “And you might be annoying and delusional, but I like you.”

Nico’s head was reeling.

_I… like you?_

I like you too, he wanted to say. I like you too, I like you a lot.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He wouldn’t sink to that level.

And yet he really wanted to.

“Can I ask you something?” Will said. He had a strange determination about him, as if he had already got out the worst of it. Maybe he had.

“Shoot,” said Nico. He was at a loss to say anything else.

“Tell me honestly, do you do drugs?”

Just when Nico thought Will couldn’t say anything more out there.

At its mere mention his heart started pounding in his chest.

“That’s a pretty personal question, don’t you think?”

“Sorry,” Will said quickly. “I didn’t mean to overstep my boundaries-”

“Well, you already have, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I have.”

“Well the answer is no. I don’t.”

_Lies, lies!_

And this time Nico could tell that Will believed him. How, he didn’t know. Probably because Will wanted to believe it.

And Nico couldn’t tell why he had lied, besides the obvious reason. Will was probably a tattler to the highest degree. But besides that, Nico didn’t want Will to know. He didn’t want Will to think he was… to think he was…

He couldn’t find the right word for it.

Then it occurred to him that they had just discussed it.

_Bad._

But then would that mean Will would accept him?

It wasn’t worth it.

They had just started talking, were forced to start talking, barely two weeks ago. And yet Will had the guts to ask these questions, these stupid questions, and to assert his stupid claims that the world was all made of sparkles and rainbow glitter and if you just wished to be good, then you would be and could go on dancing with all the fucking unicorns and fairy godmothers or some shit.

Will was naive.

Nico wished he could still be.

So he wasn’t going to tarnish that for Will.

“Sorry,” Will said quietly. “That was pretty personal.”

“I would say so.”

“It’s not that I thought you shoot up or anything-”

“Then why did you ask?”

Will’s cheeks pinked.

“That’s what I thought.”

Nico hated the look on Will’s face. Mainly because he had caused it.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said quickly, trying to repair the damage. “I know what people think. I don’t really care.”

“Yeah, I just heard…” Will trailed off.

“There’ll always be rumors,” Nico said. “Most of them are bullshit. Just ignore them.”

“Yeah, well…” Will laughed nervously. “I didn’t really think that one was true. Honestly.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

Will paused for a moment, and then continued.

“Do you know any rumors about me?”

“What is it with you and weird questions?”

“No,” Will blushed. Nico noticed that he seemed to do that a lot. “I just want to know. What do people think of me?”

“Well…”

Nico wasn’t sure he wanted to say.

“Just tell me. I won’t get mad.”

“People think you’re kind of a tight-ass,” Nico said. “And that you’re a suck-up.”

“Well…” Will looked slightly taken aback, as if he hadn’t expected Nico to be so blunt.

Then he laughed suddenly, his face breaking into a smile.

“I guess that’s kind of true,” he said.

“Really? I don’t think so,” Nico blurted out.

Will stared at him, his eyes widened ever so slightly.

“What I mean is that, it’s not _completely_ true,” Nico adlibbed. As if that would make it any better. He seemed to have burned the filter between his brain and his mouth. That was dangerous.

Will smiled ever so slightly, his eyes to the desk.

“See, you’re not that bad, Nico.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re not, but you want to be.”

“You know what, stop!”

Will only smiled and smiled and smiled right into Nico’s mind.

“You think you’re so smart,” Nico said. “Maybe the rumors are true.”

But he was joking now, he felt elated, inflated, walking on air. Almost giddy. And he was sure that Will had caused it, the balloon effect, but he didn’t know why.

What would he ever know?

“I am smart,” Will agreed. “And you need to do your work.”

“Right.”

Will glanced at the clock.

“Man! It’s already been a half hour and we haven’t done anything.”

“That’s fine with me. It’s not like I’m raring to go.”

“No, it’s not that” said Will. “I have tennis practice in like twenty minutes.”

“Tennis? Jesus christ, what could be more boring?”

“Sitting here with you, evidently. Look, I’m gonna have to go. I’ll see you Thursday. Take notes on the next section.”

He got up to leave.

“ _Tight-ass,_ ” Nico mumbled under his breath.

Will smacked him in the head with a tennis racket.

“What the fuck? Get out of here before I hit you back.”

“I’m like six inches taller and I weigh thirty more pounds than you. You do not want to try, trust me.”

“Please, three inches and fifteen pounds. You’re not much to look at.”

“Do you want another one?” Will said, hoisting up the racket.

“Bring it on.”

“On second thought, I don’t think you’re worth it.”

“Have fun, Will,” Nico said.

“Thanks, I will. Bye.”

“See you.”

And a few seconds later Will was gone, and Nico sat there for a moment, wishing he was still there.

Then he rubbed the back of his head. That was going to leave a mark.

* * *

 

****  


Nico looked at the clock.

Fifteen minutes until he could leave.

It felt like he had pushed the stupid trays for ages.

He usually didn’t mind work that much, since it kept his mind off of other things. But tonight he wasn’t having it. All the bad things about the job seemed to be amplified. The waiters never tipped him enough. The customers were rude. The diner was always crowded. Well, on second thought, that might be a good thing. Just not for him.

The place wasn’t even a real diner; it was just called that because it sounded “retro.” There were old posters of coke bottles and pin up girls everywhere that Nico thought were tacky as fuck. And the uniforms were equally as stupid. Even he himself, as a busboy, had to wear a bow tie. A freaking bow tie! That was another reason Nico disliked the clutter of people that were always packed into the restaurant, even on weekdays.

He would quit, but on good days it wasn’t that bad.

He would quit, but he needed to pay for his “medicine.”

_Medicine._ Was he really calling it that now? That sounded so… he didn’t even know.

He was clearing a table when he heard someone call him.

He turned around; the caller had been one of a group of teenage girls. He looked closer; girls he vaguely recognized from school.

And then there, against the far side of the booth in a leather jacket and combat boots. Thalia Grace.

Nico went over.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. He was already pretty sure they didn’t need anything restaurant-related.

The Asian girl closest to him smiled. “Nico… you look so cute! Why didn’t you tell me you worked here?”

“I don’t know, maybe because we don’t hang out?” Nico said. He didn’t really care. The girl was pretty, but annoying. She wore too much makeup.

The girl pouted for a moment before seemingly realizing that she should be smiling. “When does your shift end? Come sit with us.”

Nico looked at Thalia, who looked coolly back at him. No, gazing was what it was. She took a sip of her drink. He swallowed. What was she thinking right now?

“I just started,” Nico lied. He didn’t want to sit all of them. Just one of them.

“You have a late shift,” another girl complained. “Are you coming to the game tomorrow? I want to talk to you.”

She winked then, sloppily, and Nico tried not to laugh. Jesus Christ.

“No, I don’t like football.”

_Or you._

“Oh, okay.” The girl looked taken aback.

Thalia smiled slightly to herself, as if amused by the conversation going on around her. She was building a tower of sugar packets. Her black hair edged around her jawline, her earrings glinting outwards.

“I have to get back to work,” Nico said flatly, and walked away.

As he left, he could hear part of their conversation.

“I don’t understand him. Why wouldn’t he want to talk to me?”

“Yeah, he’s hot but he’s so mean!”

“He’s not being mean to you, he just doesn’t like you.”

That last one was Thalia. Nico smiled.

* * *

 

When he clocked out and went to his car, she was sitting on his hood.

Her makeup seemed to glow under the diner’s neon, and her eyes looked somewhat dangerous. He could see a cigarette in her hands, and the smoke framed her face like a veil pulled back before a groom.

“Do you want one?” she asked as he came closer, holding out a pack.

“Sure,” Nico said, and took one. She handed him a lighter. The first breath felt like he was inhaling air from a morgue. He hated smoking, but if Thalia was doing it, then he was going to as well.

He leaned against the driver’s side and blew out the smoke. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I knew you were lying. I just decided to wait for you. I don’t have a ride home.”

“How did you get here?”

“Drew. She kicked me out after I told her that you don’t like her. Her tiny mind can’t seem to comprehend that you just aren’t into her.”

Nico smirked. “Yeah, I heard that.”

“Do you think she’s pretty?”

“She’s not as hot as you.”

Thalia smiled and looked up at the sky. Nico thought that maybe she was trying to see the stars, which there weren’t many of. The city had blocked out most all of them.

“Oh, Nico. You’re going to have to try harder than that. And no more following me.”

“You can’t talk. You’re here waiting for me.”

“But you wanted to see me, didn’t you?”

“I guess.”

She turned around then, crawling over to where Nico stood. She was right by his ear.

“Don’t lie.”

Nico couldn’t help it, he smiled. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You’re flattering me, Nico. Now can you give me a ride or what?”

“Where do you live?”

“Oakridge.”

“Damn, that’s really out of my way.”

“Please?”

She swung her legs around so that they were dangling off the side of the hood.

He looked at her then, and her eyes looked freaking alive.

“Okay,” he said. “Get in.”

He could barely believe his luck. Thalia Grace was riding shotgun. The night was young. They were alone.

She had the moon and the streetlights in her hair; she had the window down and Nico was going way too fast, but he didn’t care and he was pretty sure she didn’t. She waved her hand out of the window, as if trying to touch the wind.

“Go faster,” she said.

“I’m gonna get arrested,” he said.

“I think I can seduce the cop,” she said. “Or you can, if it’s a girl. Or if it’s a gay guy.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that would work,” Nico said.

“You underestimate yourself,” she replied, still looking out the window.

“You overestimate yourself.”

“It’s better to more confident than not to have confidence at all, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” said Nico. Why did everyone want to talk about philosophical things today?

“Nico, you’re too in your own head,” Thalia said, turning to him. “You need to loosen up.”

“Wow,” he said. “You’re really telling me of all people that?”

“Yeah,” she said, taking off her jacket. “Everyone thinks you’re so cool and dangerous, but you’re really not.”

“How do you know that?”

_Funny how this conversation seems familiar._

“Because I think you don’t really know what you’re doing,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re doing at all.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

But he knew the answer.

“Let the night tell you!” she yelled out the window.

“What the-”

“Nico, listen to me,” she said, suddenly quiet. “Just trust me on this. You need to live your life, you know?”

“Watch yourself, Thalia. Last time I checked, you didn’t know me that well-”

“I like you,” she cut him off.

He looked at her for the millionth time, saw her bare shoulders and her eyeliner and hand out the window and into the world.

“I like you too,” he said.

“So it’s mutual then.” She laughed, a crazy sound, like a witch in a coven.

“Tell me, are you drunk or high?” Nico asked. Jesus, if he didn’t keep his eyes on the ground, forget the police, he was going to crash.

“I’m high on life,” was what she answered.

Nico thought that was pretty beautiful, no matter how cliche. She was beautiful. She was the light of the stars that had gone missing, but she was right there, next to Nico, a celestial being pulled down to earth.

She was new.

Nico drove until they got to her house, one of the giant Oakridge ones with the giant lawn and giant windows that no doubt required a number of housekeepers to maintain.

“Well, we’re here,” she said. “Thanks for putting up with me.”

“Anytime,” said Nico.

She got out of the car and next to the open driver’s window, and she leaned down, her arms resting on the sill.

“Nico DiAngelo…” she said slowly.

She was a mere inches from his face, and she seemed to lean in. Nico did the same.

This was it.

And then she drew away, a half smile on her face.

“Maybe next time,” she said, and she walked up the brick path, her hips swinging.

Nico waited until she was inside.

Then he punched the dashboard.

_Goddammit!_

He could almost hear her laughing.

His car was full of cigarette smoke.

Ah, what was that word again?

_Curiosity._

And she had only made him more curious.

Not that he would admit it.

So that was two people he was curious about now.

It occurred to him that they both had said the same thing to him.

_I like you._

But he had only said it back to the girl.

He hadn’t been able to say it to Will.

Somehow, it felt wrong.


	6. Chapter 6

When Nico came into to the classroom, Will could tell that something was different.

_Nico was practically grinning._

When had he ever done that?

It looked strangely foreign to see such an expression on his face. It made his features seem different; changed, almost, but there was such an odd naturality to it that it wasn’t unpleasant. Besides that, Will was glad to see Nico happy. Like, actually happy about something. Before when he smiled it seemed biting, and condescending; almost like he was trying to make fun of Will. But this was the first smile that Will could say was one hundred percent genuine. He almost relished it. It probably would not last long.

Will had been surprised that Nico had actually been doing his work lately. And it wasn’t bad, either. Not as good as his own, of course, but still, a decent job. And he hadn’t been mean, either. In fact, being with Nico was almost… pleasant.

Pleasant?

Two weeks ago, that was the last word he would have used to describe Nico DiAngelo.

And yet here he was, being happy because Nico was too.

So yeah, he didn’t hate Nico. But he hadn’t come any closer to figuring out who he was. In a deeper sense, he figured. In the sense that once he found out, he would know what made Nico the way he was, and that way that was closed off and guarded and kept under lock with the key thrown out. He still didn’t know Nico. Instead Will had come to know a different person, not quite a man but a boy that was pessimistic and quick thinking, and who sometimes peculiarly showed glimpses of someone else. Who this ‘someone else’ was Will didn’t know, but he thought that maybe Nico had been that person once.

It was all very interesting. Nico was interesting.

And there he sat now, biting back a smile. His dark hair partially obscured his eyes, but Will could still see them; they almost seemed to glint. Will knew a lot of girls thought that Nico was good looking. Sometimes he heard them talk about him, gathered in giggling clumps in the hallways. Will knew that Nico could care less. But still the girls remained relentless.

As Will looked at him, he could kind of see their line of thought. Nico’s features were rather feminine; he had dark lashes, a thin nose, full lips. He seemed younger than seventeen, somewhat cherubic in a dark sort of way. But there was a certain grace about him, and Will wondered how he could seem so young and so old at the same time. By that definition he seemed more angelic.

And yet he was pale, overly pale. He was thin, going on scrawny. His hair was often unkempt, and his clothes had little variation. Sometimes he would come in with dark circles under his eyes, and on bad days his cheeks were sunken and he looked as if he would keel over in the middle of the classroom.

But still, all these things only seemed to enhance his features, make them stand out more. A strange beautiful face in the midst of all the imperfections.

Will was so very, very glad that Nico didn’t know that he was staring.

A thought came to him.

_I wonder if he thinks I’m good looking._

Probably not. Lou Ellen had once said he was “cute at best.”

As he thought about it he got anxious.

Why was he anxious?

He didn’t, didn’t know what it was about Nico.

But he could see the outside of him, he seemed to be able to see that clearly. He wondered if Nico had slept with as many girls as everyone said he had. He wondered what the girls had looked like, and if _they_ were attractive, as pretty as he was, and he imagined them and he imagined…

He imagined…

No, he was not!

His thoughts had gotten away from him. It wouldn’t be the first time, he realized, it wouldn’t be the first time he had thought about a boy, what he meant to say was…

It had not been the first time.

Definitely not.

It was here and there, someone here and someone there but they all had something in common, and that was that they were not female.

He had tried imagining the same things, in the same way, with girls, but he had never put much effort into it. And it never came to him naturally, either. He never found himself staring at girls. Only guys, and in that moment Nico had seemed… he had seemed-

Will didn’t really want to think it.

Nico had seemed perfect.

And it had all seemed to fit then, something had connected and Will had seen something for an instant. And he had come up with that singular thought.

He could feel his heart beating in his chest, and he was surprised that Nico couldn’t hear it.

So he had these thoughts.

He knew he had them, it wasn’t like he couldn’t get rid of them.

Nico was just another, just another. It didn’t matter that he was quite possibly one of the most exquisite things, he was an exquisite thought…

Nico’s hands were moving like they always did, curving and tightening, unraveling and loosening. But this time Will thought of them differently.

It was happening again, wasn’t it?

He needed to stop before it got too far.

It was slightly funny, what would his father think?

And that was also very unfunny.

He remembered his fourteenth birthday. His dad had given him a condom. Told him to keep it in his wallet. Just in case.

Will had not used it, or had come close to using it.

Sometimes he thought that his dad suspected he was gay.

But he wasn’t gay, was he? He didn’t really have a word for it.

What was he defining as “it,” then?

He imagined what his dad’s face would be like if he told him he had used the condom with a guy.

If that’s how that stuff worked.

His dad would not be pleased, not at all.

And there sat Nico, oblivious to all this. Will almost felt bad for him. He had not asked to be subjected to one of Will’s thought processes.

_Thought processes. Ha._

It was just because Nico was stupidly beautiful.

_I’m just another one of the girls, aren’t I?_

Maybe Will was only thinking this now because he had stopped being distracted by how much he disliked Nico. Because now he didn’t hate Nico. He didn’t hate him at all. How could he, when he looked, when he looked like that.

How could he, when there was still more to be discovered. When there was more to be understood.

And Nico wasn’t even mean anymore. Will had gotten used to his way of talking, his personality.

Maybe they were friends.

Or maybe Will was just delusional.

He must be, since he had such a messed up way of thinking.

He felt very self conscious, as if his thoughts were being live broadcasted into the air.

He packaged his thoughts and put them away. Maybe he would open it later. If he could bring himself to.

Because he wasn’t going to mess this up. Just when there might be something not to mess up.

Or maybe it was all his imagination.

And then Nico said, “You’ll never guess what I did last night.”

Will jumped.

Nico raised an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

Will could barely look him in the eyes. “I’m good.”

Nico’s expression did not change.

“I’m fine,” Will said hurriedly. “What did you do?”

“The question is, _who_ did I do.”

“What?”

“Jesus, I’m just kidding. But I’m going to make it a reality.”

“What are you talking about?”

Nico stared. “Sex, what else?”

“Oh, I knew that,” said Will briskly.

He had not known that. He felt embarrassed, and he could see Nico looking at him now, looking at him hard, trying to see if he had been lying or not. But then the smile came back onto his face and he continued.

“So yeah, if you need me to clarify, I didn’t have sex last night. I didn’t even get a fucking kiss.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“Thalia Grace told me she’s into me.”

He sat there smugly, almost as if expecting Will to congratulate him.

“Do you like her too?”

“Of course.”

Will’s immediate thought was disappointment.

_He likes Thalia Grace. He doesn’t like ME._

_Why would he like me like that?_

Will didn’t even like him like that, at least he thought so.

But he _couldn’t_ like him like that.

Because he _couldn’t_ be gay.

And he _wasn’t_.

“Good for you,” he said curtly.

“Don’t tell me you’re into her too.”

Will stopped. “I’m not.”

“Then why are you acting jealous?” asked Nico, leaning in.

Will tore his head away. Nico got too close sometimes.

“I’m _not_ jealous.”

“You are. I can see it in your eyes.”

Their eyes met then, and Will could see the teasing in Nico’s. He was relieved, but not completely in the clear yet.

“You must be tripping.”

He saw Nico’s face darken slightly.

“I don’t even think she’s hot, I told you.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “You’re crazy.”

“Maybe I am.”

Nico smirked.

“Yeah wow, look at what you’re wearing today. Now that is definitely crazy. Never before have I seen someone so rebellious.”

He tugged on Will’s shirt collar. Will gasped slightly.

Nico moved his hand back, slowly.

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing! Nothing is up! I am totally fine!”

Nico smiled, halfway. “You’re weird, you know that?”

_If only you knew._

“I guess, huh?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind.”

Will was so relieved that he finally smiled, and to see Nico smile back almost made up for it.

“So that’s why you’re in such a good mood today?” he asked. “Because of Thalia?”

“Pretty much,” said Nico. “I think something’s gonna happen next time.”

“Something good?”

“Something fucking _amazing_.”

Will couldn’t help it, he laughed.

“But hey,” Nico said. “I can’t stay today. I have something going on.”

“What do you have going on?”

“My mom,” Nico said, and his expression changed somewhat. Will wasn’t sure how, or in which way. But it had, and it shifted; and it seemed to Will that his voice had changed as well.

“It’s my mom, she’s moving out of the house tonight.”

“Moving out?”

Nico looked uncomfortable. He wasn’t looking at Will; instead he looked straight ahead, as if trying to see through the whole building. His voice was strikingly monotone.

“Yeah. I’m eighteen in January, so it’ll be fine. The house is all paid for and everything.”

“Yeah, but why is she leaving?”

“She’s leaving because-” he stopped suddenly. “She’s going to move in with my aunt down in Southern California. She’s picking her up tonight.”

“Why is she leaving?”

Nico glared at him suddenly.

“Mind your own business, Solace.”

“But-”

“Mind your own business!”

Will was flustered. Nico had gone from happy, actually happy in one instant to angry in another. And he was scary when he was angry.

Will couldn’t understand it. If there was something about his mother, which Will was sure there was, Nico wasn’t telling. And Will really, really, wanted to know. This was the kind of thing he was looking for. Something that would help him in his quest to find Nico DiAngelo.

He tried one more time. “Come on, Nico, you can tell-”

“No!” Nico said. “Just no, okay?”

He suddenly stood up and rifled through his backpack. He dropped, almost threw, a pile of papers on Will’s desk.

“Here’s my homework. I did it all.”

“Thanks, Nico. I’m sorry-”

“Don’t.”  
  


He looked unstable, teetering on the edge of something that Will didn’t know about. His hands grasped, until he shoved one in his pocket and he seemed to find something there. His eyes were big, and lost; they looked crazy, almost.

And then something seemed to break inside of him, and Will was again reminded of how young he looked; his features melting into those of a child’s. The eyes lost their fire and he bit his lip, once, twice, trying to get a grip.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Will, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Will blurted out. “I’m sorry that I-”

“You don’t need to say sorry,” Nico cut him off.

He didn’t seem like he knew what to do next.

“Do you want me to walk you out to your car?”

Nico shrugged.

“Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow-”

“No, I’d like that.”

Will packed up his things and got up silently, following Nico out of the classroom. He could see that there was something wrong with Nico’s hands; they were shaking and he kept wiping them on his jeans, as if they were sweaty. They walked in silence.

A while passed and Nico spoke. “Sorry. I’m just really tired. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s fine,” said Will. “Sorry I was prying.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Nico. “It’s actually kind of… I don’t know, kind of nice actually.”

The wind was blowing through his hair. In the sun it looked lighter, almost brown. His skin didn’t look as pale. It struck Will suddenly, as if he was seeing what Nico could be. What he could have looked like, if something hadn’t happened.

What was that something?

“So…”

“I’m not going to tell you. Maybe someday,” Nico said finally.

“Maybe someday…” Will repeated, and it was almost a sigh. The wind seemed to echo him, and he felt as if the world was sighing around him; sighing for him but mostly for Nico, who walked slightly in front of him with the young face and old eyes.

He was seventeen, he was ten and seven years, however many months.

He didn’t quite seem that way.

The leaves falling seemed slightly magical.

The scene seemed unearthly.

They got to his car. It was old and beat up, not very well taken care of. The paint was chipping, and the windows were filthy. It smelled like smoke.

“It looks like fall, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does.”

There was a short small silence, and the rustling of wind in leaves and grass around them seemed to amplify. It seemed to Will that they were in the center of a whirl, a small vortex, and it was just himself and Nico and the old car.

It was fall, yes it was, and Nico’s eyes looked like winter.

“Good luck,” Will managed.

“Thanks,” Nico said back, but it hadn’t seemed like he had really heard him.

As he walked past Will towards the driver’s seat he touched Will’s shoulder, once, lightly. It seemed to Will that it could have been the wind.

But it had been Nico, and Will was left standing there long after the car had sputtered to life and left, the leaves swirling around his feet and his hair.

****  
  


By the time Nico walked into the house there was already a suitcase by the door.

He almost tripped on it; he moved it aside.

His mother was in the kitchen.

Her hair was down, and she was for once wearing jeans and a tshirt. She stood there, staring out the window.

“I saw you come in,” she said. “You look so old.”

“I’m almost eighteen, mom.”

“Call me _mama_. Don’t go forgetting your Italian already.”

“ _Mi dispiace, mama_.”

Nico wasn’t sure why she still made him speak in Italian. He didn’t even remember the place. And he was pretty sure he’d never return.

His mother turned to him. She looked tired, not surprising. Her eyes looked hollow. Nico supposed he had inherited that from her.

Back when they had friends they used to tell Nico that he and his mother looked exactly alike. And Bianca too, the three of them practically triplets.

And now what had become of them?

They were scattering, dispersing; and Nico would be the last to stay but the first to want to go.

He heard the soft roar of a car outside. His aunt’s, it must be; he could see the headlights shine light into the kitchen.

This was it.

It was not a lot of time, but it was still maybe more than he wanted.

“Did you take your medication?” Nico asked.

“Yes,” she said softly. “All of it.”

“Good.”

“Nico, is this really okay?” she said suddenly. Her eyes widened, almost bulged. She clutched her hands to her chest as if protecting them.

“It’s fine, mama. This will be good for you.”

She stepped forward, grabbing his shoulder. She looked slightly crazy. Nico took a step back, trying not to let her fall. His head was spinning. The headlights washed out the kitchen; it looked stark and all too real.

Was this a good idea?

He thought it was, at the time he had called. So it still must be. There was no going back now.

“Nico, Nico! Why did you do this?” his mother gasped suddenly, clutching his shirt.

Nico didn’t quite know what to say.

“Because you need help. You need to get better.”

“I will get better, I promise! I’ll stay here and watch you graduate. Nico, please.”

She was begging him now, and the only reason he didn’t give in was because he knew this wasn’t her.

“No, I’ll be fine. Clara will send me money. I have a job. But you, you have to go now.”

She released him then, and with a big, shuddering sigh backed into the sink.

“Nico, I’m worried about myself.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But I’m more worried about you.”

He had not expected her to say that.

His heart seized in upon itself.

“Nico, these days you don’t look well. Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Yes there is. I’m your mother, Nico.” She glared at him. “Tell me what it is and I’ll leave.”

“There is nothing wrong with me. But you have to go. It won’t be for that long.”

She stared at him, as if her eyes could somehow steal away what was in his.

“Mama, trust me.”

“Alright.”

His aunt came in the house, silently, and took the suitcase out to the car.

“Promise me you’ll try to get better,” Nico said.

“I will, baby. But only if you promise me you’ll make friends.”

“I do have friends.”

“Octavian and those boys? They are not your friends.”

“It’s time to go now.”

She grabbed his arm for the tenth time.

“Nico, you’ll be okay, won’t you? Tell me you’ll be okay.”

“I’ll be okay.”

Nico felt strangely numb.

They embraced, and she felt small in his arms.

“ _Io ti amo_ ,” she said.

Nico nodded, but as much as he tried he couldn’t find it in himself to say it back.

If she was hurt by this he didn’t know, because his aunt ushered her out of the house and he was left standing on the doormat, and it felt very empty around him and inside him.

He watched the car leave. With it left a combination of guilt and sadness, with more than a little anger and more than a little love.

He didn’t really know what to feel.

He looked for something to do, but the alcohol was all cleared out now. All that was left was the mound of empty cans and bottles left in the backyard. And that was all that was left of his mother, so a perverse part of him didn’t want to throw them out.

So he took two pills and went to sleep.

Maybe if he hadn’t taken them he would have cried, but he did, so he didn’t.

It surprised him how last night had been so great and this night had been so awful.

When he woke up he decided not to go to school.

Someone had left a text message on his phone. Someone had tried to call him, twice, and failed.

He looked at the message. It was from Will.

 

_Are you okay?_

He laughed out loud, and was about to throw the phone across the room when he thought, and calmed down, and he didn’t.

Was he okay.

Was he ever?

Obviously Will would throw a fit if he said he wasn’t.

So he texted back _yes_.

He stared at the message for more than a few times after that. He kept coming back to it.

Will texted back a little while later, with a long message that Nico didn’t read completely but read enough to know that Will cared.

Apparently he cared a lot.

And Nico knew that Will did, care a lot, but he hadn’t known that Will cared about him.

 

_Promise me you'll make friends._

It was not a bad feeling.

So maybe Nico was a little bit okay.

At least for now.

****  
  



	7. Chapter 7

"Ready?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, one, two, three."

They flipped the papers over.

Nico smiled, slowly and grandly.

"Yes!"

He threw the paper in the air, like it was a graduation cap.

"Are you going to pick that up?"

"Don't ruin it, Will!"

The leaves were at it again, they were dancing and Nico was dancing, round and round in the late afternoon. He was laughing and smiling, he was looking up at the clouds; Will knew he was overreacting for his sake, but it was still nice to see.

They were by Will's car this time, the papers had been laying out on his hood. They were tests; test they had taken that day but that Will had convinced the teacher to grade early for the two of them. Will had pulled an A. Of course. He didn't mind saying it.

And Nico had gotten… he didn't know. Apparently something good.

He watched him now. He seemed rather carefree, alight on some bright flame, he was wheeling and careening haphazardly in the empty parking lot as he went to go retrieve the paper.

There was not a hint of the Nico that Will had seen a few days ago, the wintery, ghosted Nico.

This Nico was different; he was practically glowing.

He was overly enthusiastic, probably trying to make up for his lack of such earlier in the week. He had said nothing about what had happened with his mother. He had skipped school initially, and after that, Will's only clues were his attitude (more down than usual) and his face (more clouded than usual). Nico had given him nothing else. And yet here he was, acting like a prisoner who hadn't seen the sun in fifteen years.

Will thought that maybe he had never looked more beautiful.

Was he still thinking about that?

And Nico came back to him and Will almost hugged him as they grew closer, but then Nico blushed slightly and Will blushed slightly and they both pulled back.

"So what did you get?" Will asked. "It must have been good for you to freak out like you did."

"Oh, it is. Ready for this?"

"Yeah."

Will couldn't help it, he was smiling into Nico's eyes and Nico was smiling back and he felt that they were spilling over into each other, as if his feelings had welled too far over and Nico's had done the same.

But Will was happy because Nico was happy, and Nico was happy because of a test.

"Drumroll, please."

Will obliged, beating the car hood with his palms.

Nico flipped the paper over with a flourish.

Will stopped.

"A C?"

Will had never gotten a C in his life. Ever. Never ever.

A C was not a good grade.

"Yep. An honest to god, real life C, Will."

"Are you serious?"

"Really, Will?"

"Really what?"

Nico looked at him pointedly, tilting his head a little.

"Are you really gonna do this?"

"Do what…"

"Come on, be happy for me. It's a C! That's better than I've done all year. It's passing. I've improved!"

"It's still a C!" Will said, indignant to cave in. But he knew he would.

"Come on, Will. Don't be a hard-ass. This is thanks to you."

"Thanks to me you got a C? That's hardly something I should be proud of."

"You're an asshole!"

Nico pushed him off the hood of the car, and Will landed on the ground, laughing.

"So now you're laughing."

"I am."

Nico folded crossed his arms, then reconsidered; he crumpled his test into a wad and threw it at Will's head. Will threw it back.

"Careful. I play tennis, you know."

"That has nothing to do with anything."

"Still."

Nico narrowed his eyes. "Well, what do you have to say?"

"What? I don't have anything to say, Nico."

"Try again."

"Still nothing."

"You're an idiot. You're a fucking idiot."

"Good job, Nico."

"Thank you."

Will snorted.

"No, really, thank you," Nico said, his eyes softening.

"No problem," said Will, and he hated that his voice sounded breathless. Maybe Nico would attribute it to the paper pelting.

"A C!" Nico yelled, and Will imagined that the wind carried it all the way to the clouds.

The play didn't premiere until January, and yet the cast of Romeo and Juliet practiced way too much for Will's taste.

It wasn't that he didn't like acting, it was just that he had so many other things to do. Between the play, tutoring Nico, tennis, and music lessons, not to mention homework, it was shaping up to be maybe a bit more than Will could handle.

But on second thought, of course not. Will could handle anything! He was in line to be valedictorian. He couldn't slip now. He wasn't going to. In some ways, he was stronger than ever.

But Nico had gotten him thinking about something. Well, not just one thing, Nico had got him thinking about a lot of things.

But one of those things was the realization that Will had never really had a life at high school. As in, he hadn't lived. He had never been to a party. Never had a girlfriend. And he was on dance committee, but he had never been to an actual dance.

Instead he had committed himself to actual school, which seemed to be Nico's least concern.

So in that sense Will was different than most people at school. Including, and especially Nico.

They were so different.

Will wondered if Nico thought about that too, now that they were friends.

That again.

If they were actually friends. Will never knew what Nico was thinking. And he had the uncomfortable suspicion that Nico could read his thoughts exactly.

They had not had tutoring that day, and instead Will sat on the stage with the rest of the cast, waiting for the director to get organized.

Will had changed out of his school clothes; wearing gym shorts and an old t-shirt. It was starting to get cold, especially in the theater. He wished he had a jacket.

Next to him, Lou Ellen yawned.

"Do you think he's gonna let us go home? We've been here for hours already."

She laid down on the stage, her chin resting on her arms. She blew a lock of hair from her eyes.

"That's what I'm wondering," said Will. "I've been busy lately, and I have so much homework to do."

"Busier than usual?" Lou Ellen smiled. "Will, you're the busiest person I know. I find that hard to believe."

"Well yeah," Will said. "I've had extra tutoring though."

"I can't believe Mrs. Carver roped you into that."

"Yeah well, I have to do about an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

"So that's where you've been! Wait, who are you tutoring?"

"Who am I…"

All the sudden Will felt reluctant to divulge that information.

What what come out of his mouth would imply one thing, when in reality the person in question was so very different and so very remarkable; and was growing fast before Will's eyes to become so much more than Lou Ellen or anyone could ever guess.

He couldn't very well explain it to her because… well, because he couldn't really explain it to himself.

It was just Nico DiAngelo as Will knew him, and nothing more and nothing less.

He wished it could be Nico Diangelo as he understood him, but Will hadn't gotten to that point yet.

It was funny to think that when that name was said Will would give it a different connotation than Lou Ellen. Would give it a different definition than anyone in the theater. Hell, maybe even the whole school.

And so a strange part of Will didn't want to say his name out loud, for fear that it would somehow shatter something fragile that he had worked so hard to build.

But he did, he did tell Lou Ellen.

And her reaction was just what he had expected.

"What?"

"Yeah."

"Nico DiAngelo?"

"Yeah, him. I just said that."

She rolled up off the floor and took Will by the shoulders.

"I am so sorry, Will."

She was half joking, so Will didn't have the heart to be annoyed.

"Wait, tell me everything. What is he like?"

Will laughed nervously.

What is he like?

Will could not fit it all into one sentence, into a paragraph, into normal language.

What he felt instead was that there was some vague sense growing within him, something obscured but growing clearer every day, as he peppered it with questions and answers and the sound of his voice.

How the hell was he supposed to explain that to Lou Ellen?

He imagined it now

well, it's not something that's corporeal

and it sounded ridiculous, even in his own head.

He had been reading too much Shakespeare.

So instead he said, "He's okay."

"That's it?" Lou Ellen complained. "Come on, tell me more. Is he scary?"

"Sometimes."

"What drugs does he use?"

"I don't think he does any."

"Come on, Will!" she almost yelled. Lou Ellen was not a quiet person. Maybe that was why she was in drama.

He had met her in sophomore year, when he had been on the stage crew of Guys and Dolls. She had been Sarah, and it was she who had convinced him the next year to try out as an actor. It had been a good idea, though at the time Will had been doubtful. And now she was Juliet, and Will was Romeo. Lou Ellen had been so excited when she heard the news that she knocked over a chair trying to hug him in homeroom.

Lou Ellen was a lot of things that Nico was not. Nico's little outburst in the parking lot the other day had reminded Will of Lou Ellen, just a little. But upon reconsidering it, it seemed very different, just maybe a different essence to it all. Or maybe Will just didn't like comparing Lou Ellen and Nico to each other. It seemed to him the they belonged in totally different places. He wasn't sure why, but his mind wanted to keep them apart. Two separate entities. Two separate people.

They did not belong in the same category. What category this was, Will didn't know. It wasn't as simple as boy and girl. It wasn't his friends and not his friend.

Nico was just different.

There was a different feeling about him that Will had never attributed to anyone else. That he had never felt from anyone else.

And it all seemed very private, something that Will was pretty sure he would never tell a soul even after he left for college and started a family and would never see Nico again.

"You look weird," Lou Ellen said.

Thanks, Lou Ellen.

"So, what else? Is he nice?"

Will thought for a moment, before realizing he couldn't. Lou Ellen had all but obliterated his previous train of thought.

"He's nice once you get to know him."

"What does he like? What does he talk about?"

"Well, he…"

Does he like anything?

...

Oh yeah.

"He likes Thalia Grace," Will said slowly.

Lou Ellen gasped. "Wait, like likes her?"

"Yeah, I think so. She likes him back."

"Well, that's actually really perfect."

"Why?"

Will wanted to know why everyone seemed to think so.

He really, really, wanted to know.

"Well, that's easy," Lou Ellen said. "She sleeps around. So does he. They both wear way too much black. And they're both really hot."

"You think Nico is hot?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I? So does every other girl in this school. Anyway, they'd be perfect for each other. Everyone thinks they're really 'cool' anyway. They're not that cool, if you ask me-"

"But you think they'd be good with each other?"

"Yeah, didn't I just say that?'

Will was secretly glad that Lou Ellen wasn't perspective enough to notice that something was off.

"Well, I don't think so."

She mock gasped. "Why?"

"I don't know, I just can't see them together," Will said.

But he could. He could see how they would be perfect for each other.

But some part of his mind wouldn't allow it to be so. A part of his mind thought they would be terrible together. He did not want them to hook up. He did not want them to date.

He did not want to see them holding hands, he did not want to see them making out when they thought no one was looking, though knowing them, they probably wouldn't care less. He did not want to see them walk through the halls like some sort of god and goddess, far surpassing the levels of any homecoming king and queen. Because they didn't need that, they were so high above that…

In that small moment, Will hated both of them.

Actually, just Thalia Grace. Thalia Grace with her stupid eyeliner and boots and sex life.

Then he got frustrated at himself for thinking that.

Why should he hate Thalia? He had no reason to hate her. He didn't even know her.

Maybe he hated her because she would fit so perfectly together with Nico.

He would switch that hate to dislike. Maybe even general distrust. But he couldn't shake the feeling.

And then another, counter-logic thought, another feeling, the sure thing that Thalia and Nico didn't belong together.

Far from being biased, something just didn't seem right.

Will wasn't sure why that was, but it grated on him. He wanted to know why, why two people that should go together so well, somehow didn't.

It wasn't a suspicion, it was just something that Will seemed to know, in his heart, and it made no sense but it was there and he couldn't erase it.

Will felt that if only he could know everything about himself, he would everything in the whole world.

But it didn't work like that. He wasn't even eighteen, wasn't even done with high school. He had so much more to learn, to experience. And yet he felt that he had discovered more about himself in the past month than he ever had from years before.

Since he had met Nico.

So yeah, maybe he could admit that he was jealous of Thalia Grace.

That she would somehow take Nico away from him, that she would also discover the part of Nico that Will had just started to uncover. And that maybe she would do it better, and Nico would forget all about the boy who had tutored him not so long ago.

And that was another thing that Lou Ellen could never, ever understand.

"Well, you're crazy," she said.

Everyone was saying he was crazy. Maybe they had a point.

Will was glad when the director called for order.

"We're going to continue our read through. Act 1, Scene 5."

It proceeded as normal until they reached the part that Will knew had been coming, but still did not want to get to.

"Then don't move while I act out my prayer."

There was a small silence.

The director raised an eyebrow.

"Continue."

"Well, it says they kiss," Will said meekly.

"Well, it's a read through. You don't actually have to do it."

Thank god.

"Wait, never mind. You're going to have to do it at some point, it might as well be now."

Shoot.

Will exchanged a nervous glance with Lou Ellen, and was surprised to see that she didn't look entirely displeased.

He looked her over, once, he didn't mean to but he did. She seemed so familiar to him. Her small chin, reddish hair, a little extra weight on her. She had a nice face, he supposed.

But he didn't want to kiss her.

He wasn't sure about the look in her eyes, either. She laughed nervously.

But who knew?

Maybe it would be good.

Maybe he would like it so much that he would never, ever, think about boys in a weird way ever again.

Maybe he would never think about Nico in a weird way ever again.

Maybe Lou Ellen could be his Thalia.

That thought seemed preposterous, but he wouldn't know until he tried, would he?

"What are you guys waiting for? Just do it. It can't hurt you. Will, you have to start it."

She gave a little shrug of her shoulders, she was smiling slightly. She took a step closer, and Will could see her makeup, the stage lights illuminating the outline of her hair. Though in definition it seemed blurry, as if he could not access her fully.

"Do it," the director called.

He took a deep breath and kissed her.

He could taste her chapstick. Her lips were neither cold nor warm.

He felt little else.

When they pulled away, he was glad for it.

He gave her a lopsided smile, not knowing what else to do.

And to his discomfort she smiled back fully, her face shining.

The cast burst into sarcastic applause. The director begrudgingly joined in.

Lou Ellen was still staring at him as if she had never seen him before.

Will moved away from her slightly.

So much for that.

If that was what kissing was like, then he was disappointed. It felt slack. It felt wrong.

But then again, maybe that was because they were forced to kiss. Maybe it was because he didn't actually like Lou Ellen in that way.

He wondered what it would feel like to kiss someone he actually liked.

And she had done nothing more but reinforce his feelings about someone else.


	8. Chapter 8

It was midnight or later, and Will could not go to sleep.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried.

He had turned his desk light on and off maybe ten times. He had gone to the bathroom. He had watched tv.

And then he would lay back down, in the semi-darkness, and think.

Think about Nico.

He didn't mean to think about him, but it happened; it hit him fast and soft all at once and he would lie there staring at the ceiling, somehow wishing that Nico was lying there next to him.

And so it was that he finally came to a conclusion.

I am in love with Nico DiAngelo.

It seemed to reverberate in his head, like a cacophony.

Okay, maybe he wasn't in love with him. He just thought he was.

He just thought he was in love with Nico because of his face, because of the way he smiled, because of the way he made conversation and the way Will liked being with him so much it almost ached when he wasn't.

And this had all snuck up on Will; it had gradually mounted and waited, and then suddenly picked the right moment to spring up on him and scare him out of his damn mind.

Will thought that maybe he should admit it to himself.

After he had kissed Lou Ellen, after practice, he gone home in silence. He usually turned on the radio, but he hadn't. And he remembered how the kiss felt, all blank and papery and utterly miserable. And he drove he seemed to take it apart in his head, dismantled it; like a puzzle or a machine. And he put it back together, but better. He took out her hair and made it darker, her lips fuller, her frame thinner and straighter; he replaced the cold with heat, her awkward hanging hands with experienced ones.

So in the end he had rebuilt her in the spitting image of Nico.

And he found he much preferred it.

Even if it was only his imagination.

So now Will sat there and thought that this all meant that he was in love with him.

It was strange how in being so honest he was lying to himself.

In love?

Maybe love wasn't the right word for it. Maybe it was more like a need, an obsession; maybe because he couldn't quite identify it he labeled it as such, but it really wasn't. And it wasn't like Will would know. After all, he had never been in love before. So he didn't have anything to compare it to.

As he thought about it, as it grew larger, it made him nervous; it made him short of breath and he imagined Nico, standing there at the foot of his bed, then crawling over the sheets and slowly approaching him and…

Will sat bolt upright, just about.

He went into the bathroom, and he ran the water cold over his face and over his hands.

What he would give to just go to sleep. Please. If he could just shut his mind off.

Please turn it off.

But it wasn't turning off, that Will could tell, it wasn't shutting down any time soon.

He looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was everywhere. His face was red. And he looked scared, he looked scared and tired and maybe just a little blissful.

He turned on the faucet again, watched the water swirl-

"What are you doing up, Will?"

A banging on the door.

"Go to sleep."

"Yeah, mom, I'm just going to the bathroom."

"Well, you're making a lot of noise."

"Sorry."

He listened to her footsteps pad away, waited until they faded. He took one last look in the mirror and trudged back to his bedroom.

He wasn't sure how he thought water would help, but it had, somehow. Maybe he just suddenly realized how tired he was.

He thought, he was thinking of situations beyond him, situations which would earn him a thousand years of trouble if they ever even existed. Which they didn't. They were situations in his mind for a reason.

And he waited, he waited to sleep but he thought of Nico, and maybe how, maybe hopelessly, he could somehow make the pictures come to life.

When Will next saw Nico, he almost jumped out of his chair.

To greet him or from nerves or otherwise, WIll didn't know. But he had done it.

I'm such an idiot.

Nico smiled and rolled his eyes and went to his seat.

And from then on out Will had to be careful about looking at Nico. It wasn't easy to keep other people from noticing. And to make matters worse, Jason Grace sat in front of Nico. His giant football shoulders obscured him most of the time. And to make things even more worse than that, Jason liked to talk to Nico. A lot. Once he even ruffled his hair.

Will had thought he would break the pencil he was holding. If he could. What was this, jealousy?

Oh my god.

This was out of control. He was dangerously ahead of himself. He felt as if he had not been watching and stumbled off a cliff, and now he was falling, falling hard.

For the last time, you are not in love with Nico Diangelo!

But he was.

He, Will Solace, was in love.

With another boy.

With a beautiful boy, with an amazing boy, but a boy nonetheless.

Okay, okay. Okay.

How had this flown so far in such a short time?

Will felt embarrassed out of his mind. If Nico knew, he would definitely stop being friends with him. Actually, scratch that. Nico would probably hate him.

And yet Will found some vague sense of hope in every glance, every laugh, every smile. Sometimes it seemed like Nico was flirting with him, even. Maybe it was just teasing, but it seemed that way. But come to think about it, Nico was kind of that way with everyone. Flirty. It sounded stupid, but sometimes he just seemed to broadcast sex. Boys, girls; just the way he looked at them, his gaze. Like he held you there, like he was inviting you. It was hard for Will to look him in the eyes when he did that. But it was also hard to look away.

And to think he was jealous of Jason. Jason, who didn't matter, who was just talking. The bigger problem lied in his sister.

Thalia Grace.

The girl Nico would most definitely love to get his hands on.

Who he wouldn't freaking stop talking about.

And no matter how much Will might delude himself that Nico was even the slightest bit fluid in his sexuality, Thalia Grace only cemented the fact that he was straight.

So did that mean that Will was gay?

Gay?

It seemed like a foreign word.

But it wasn't, it was something that Will had always been aware of. Something in the back of his mind, and now it was rushing to the forefront before he could stop it. It was as if all his efforts to suppress it had failed, and now it had flung open the gates and released a stream of pure, unadulterated thought.

It scared him, it scared him a lot.

But it gave him a thrill, something he couldn't describe. Somehow, it felt right. But it wasn't right, was it?

Everyone had always told him it wasn't. Well, not everyone, but his family, and they amounted to everything in Will's mind.

Oh god, do they know?

No, he hoped not. He really, really, hoped not. What if they suspected? Forget that, what if his friends suspected? His teachers? The school?

He needed to get himself a girlfriend. But then he remembered the kiss, and the idea was so repulsive he knew that he could never do it.

He felt like crying, or screaming, or laughing; and he wasn't sure which one.

Maybe he should have never met Nico. Maybe that would have been best.

But he had never before felt so alive.

So present, so in the moment; it was just another entry in the long list of things he couldn't describe.

And all the sudden he felt a hand on his shoulder, felt the fingers slide down a bit before they released.

Will knew whose hand it was. At least he hoped it was that hand.

And he felt him lean down, whisper in his ear.

"Hey. Will."

"Gosh, Nico, don't do that."

He could feel Nico's hair grazing his face just slightly as he pulled up.

"Do what?"

"You know what I mean."

"I'm just messing with you. I feel like I have to say that way too often."

"Well, then maybe that's a hint for you to stop," Will said.

But he didn't want Nico to stop, that is, teasing him like that. But he didn't want Nico to do it only because he was trying to make him uncomfortable. Because it did, it make him feel uncomfortable. But in a good way. Was that even possible?

"What are you doing just sitting here?" Nico asked. "The bell already rung."

"What? Oh…"

Will looked around him. People were filing out.

"I was just...thinking."

Oh, how he hoped he wasn't blushing.

"You're an odd one."

"Nico…"

"What?"

"Hey, do you want to come over today?"

Nico stared at him. "Excuse me?"

Will hadn't mean to say it, but he had. Really? Really?

This was such a stupid idea. But now he had said it, and it was too late. He would just have to go with it. Geez, why wasn't he cooler? And also, why couldn't he keep himself under control? That's what he wanted to know the most. Will knew he was smart. Well, at least he used to be. Now he was acting approximately the opposite.

"Yeah, I mean like, for tutoring. Instead of doing it in class."

"Why?"

Ha ha. Why.

It's not because I'm obsessed with you or anything.

"I don't know, I just thought it might be easier. If you don't want to, that's fine, I mean-"

"No, that sounds great."

Nico smiled slightly, lopsidedly, only for a moment before he seemed to wrestle it down.

"Do you have your car?"

"No, my parents dropped me off."

"Okay, I'll drive you then."

"I'm not sure your car can handle carrying two people at once."

"Hey, don't diss my car. It still works."

"Barely."

"Will, shut up or I'm not coming over."

"You don't have anywhere else to go."

Nico laughed.

"True. What's gotten into you today?"

"A lot of things."

Nico looked at him for a second, eyes almost narrowed, as if trying to figure something out.

And then the bell rung, and they had to run to class.

It took Nico about three tries to get his car to start, and Will laughed at him the whole time.

"Shut up."

"No, it's funny."

"Your face is going to look funny."

"That's so cliche."

Nico sighed. It wasn't like he had the money to get it fixed, much less buy a new car. He ate for free at school and at work. The house bills were paid for by his aunt, and some of his gas money. Emphasis on some. And then there was that other big thing he had to pay for. Boy, did that suck up his cash.

So between all that he didn't have very much left over. But besides, he liked his car. As far as he was concerned, it moved, and that was what was important.

Will sat in the passenger seat, and he was suddenly reminded of Thalia, who had sat there not that long before. The two of them could not be more different. And yet they had both sat in the same seat, both beside him, and he had felt maybe the same thing about both of them. This thing he had labeled "curiosity." Was that what it was, though? That's all that came to him when he thought about it. And was it really the same? It was similar but felt different, still, and he was uncomfortably aware of Will sitting next to him, Will with his hair blowing in the wind like her hair had.

He felt like he had to say something.

"Hey, at least my car isn't sissy like yours."

Will looked over at him, and Nico quickly turned his eyes to the road.

"At least mine has air conditioning."

"...Fair point."

Small talk passed with a while and Nico found himself in Oakridge.

God, when would the coincidences end?

Will's house wasn't far from Thalia's at all. Maybe like five or six blocks. Nico didn't feel the need to inform Will of that fact. His house was a bit smaller than Thalia's, but still much bigger and nicer than any house Nico had ever lived in. So they were rich, he was assuming. If not rich, then well-off. And if not well-off, well, then someone must have died and given them a lot of money.

It was like a blast of Americana. This house had a fucking white picket fence, for Christ's sake. Everything was neat, and orderly, just like Will was. Nico smiled. No place here for an Italian bastard child such as himself.

"What's so funny?" Will asked, unlocking the door.

"Nothing, ignore me. Your house is really nice."

"Thanks."

Nico felt out of place, that was the only term for it.

He looked around with some kind of reverie. The house was just as nice on the inside.

He walked up to a table of family pictures. There was Will, a baby. A toddler, at the beach. In grade school, sitting in front of a piano. Smiling, smiling always. He seemed to practically glow out of the frames.

"Don't look at those," Will said, probably embarrassed.

Nico wouldn't be embarrassed.

He wouldn't be embarrassed to have a nice house and good grades and a family who loved him. He wouldn't be embarrassed at all. And it was nice to see, but it made him depressed. Nothing out of the ordinary there. It might have also been kind of hopeful, but he looked at Will hanging up his jacket on a hook and thought to himself that Will knew nothing, nothing about him.

And he had pretty much figured out by now that Will was interested, wanted to find out about Nico. He wouldn't be the first one.

He hadn't gotten very far at all, but he had still gotten the farthest.

But the life that Will had, his privilege; it all meant one thing to Nico. He didn't hate him for it anymore. Rather it left a sort of ache, because he knew that there were parts of him, the vast majority of him, that Will would never understand. He could try, but when it came down to it, the only person that could know Nico as he was was himself. And even he didn't understand himself sometimes.

And yet he felt a need to tell someone, to tell Will all this, and maybe by some miracle he would understand. Somehow his mind was telling him, instructing him; it was as if Will had triggered something deep within his most inaccessible regions, he had caused a chain reaction, a train of cards crashing to the ground.

Nico was about to say something stupid when Will's mother came through the door.

It was strange how little she resembled Nico's own mom. She wasn't strikingly pretty, but she wasn't plain either. She wore an apron. Her hands were gloved in flour, and she shook Nico's hand nonetheless. He tried to smile.

The house was a dollhouse, its family paper dolls. A cut out, a set piece; it seemed almost unreal.

But Will wasn't lifeless, he was real; so real to Nico that the whole situation seemed rather confusing.

And yet he seemed to fit in perfectly. Part of the design. Nico stuck out. He was a foreigner.

Ha, ha. Literally.

But no, a foreigner to this kind of life.

He wasn't sure why it was affecting him so much, but he was pretty sure it had to do with his mom leaving.

He felt the need to move closer to Will, to have him protect him, take him in.

And so he stepped away. He didn't want Will to know.

Will would probably think he was a fucking idiot. And it was only slightly ironic that Nico chose to illustrate his own shitty life with a series of romantic notions.

If that's what he was calling this.

The whole idea of Will was a romantic notion.

Did he want him, or did he want to be him?

Maybe both?

God, it disturbed him.

He followed Will to his room.

They sat on the floor, papers spread out around them.

Eventually Nico couldn't keep it in any longer.

"What is it like, living here?"

Will looked up at him, his pen pausing on his work.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, what is your life like? What's your family like? What was your childhood like?"

Woah, that was definitely too much.

To his surprise, Will answered him.

"I don't know. Pretty normal. I've had a pretty good childhood, I guess. I'm pretty busy most of the time. My parents can be kind of intense."

That was a rather simple answer. Nico had hoped for more, but to be honest, he hadn't expected much. And Will was looking at him now, looking at him in the way that he was starting to do more and more often. It would make Nico uncomfortable if it was anyone else. If it was Thalia it might turn him on. But Thalia had never really looked at him like that before. It was like Will was trying to see inside him, almost. It felt strange but oddly gratifying to have someone look at him in that way.

Nico knew that he wanted to ask, what about you? what was your childhood like?

But Will didn't, and Nico was grateful for it.

"Can I ask you something?"

Will was looking down now, he was fiddling with the corner of his paper. Nico could see his profile in full detail. In the fading light from the open window it seemed to stand out, his features in full definition.

"Yeah, what?"

"What does it feel like, when you kiss someone?"

Nico was taken aback. He laughed, and the look on Will's face made him stop immediately.

"Wait, have you never kissed anyone before?"

"I kissed Lou Ellen the other day," Will said miserably.

"So… don't you already know what it feels like?"

"I just want to hear what you think."

"Well… it feels good, I guess."

"It doesn't feel gross?"

"No! Wait, what?"

"Because it felt weird," Will said. "It felt really, really weird."

Nico didn't really know what to say. Will looked lost, that was the word for it. He wasn't looking at Nico, and Nico was suddenly afraid of what would happen if he did.

"Do you like her?" he asked finally.

"No."

"Then why did you kiss her?"

"It was for Romeo and Juliet."

"That doesn't count, then."

"So it's normal?"

"Yeah, I guess. You just need practice, then. If you've never kissed anyone before then obviously it's not going to turn out great."

"Practice." Will scoffed.

There was a brief moment of silence.

Don't look at me.

But Will did, and their eyes caught for a moment.

In the suspension Nico had the wild urge to kiss him.

To grab him by the face, pull him closer, and kiss him.

And he could see his own thoughts reflected in blue.

And then there was a shout from downstairs, and as Will turned whatever small magnitude that had passed between them was suddenly broken.

Nico covered his mouth with his hand and turned the other way.

"Will!"

The yell from downstairs again. It wasn't his mother.

"I have to go."

Nico followed him down the stairs. He felt vaguely numb, electrocuted. Had Will been thinking the same thing? He had to have been.

A part of Nico hoped he hadn't. Then it would only be Nico's fault, only his thoughts, and he could live with that.

Will's dad looked like how Nico had pictured him. Enough said.

The man stared at Nico. He saw him look him up and down.

It was only when he opened his mouth that Nico noticed that maybe he was different from his mother.

"Who is this, Will?"

Nico had pretty good radar for detecting when someone didn't like him, and it was beeping pretty incessantly at the moment.

"Oh, this is Nico. I'm tutoring him, remember?"

Nico waved, somewhat half heartedly. He didn't want to shake hands, not with the way this man was looking at him.

Nico was used to adults treating him like this. He'd be the first one to admit that he wasn't exactly "wholesome" looking. Which was actually right on the money. But still, snap judgement was never nice.

"Why is he here?"

Not even acknowledging me. Nice. I much prefer your wife.

"Well, it's- it's because, um,"

"We had work to finish up," Nico cut in. Will didn't seem like he was going to be much use in this situation.

"Yeah, that's it."

"Not right now. Will, it's time for practice."

"But dad, Nico's here-"

"You know the rules."

"What is he going to do while I practice? He-"

"He'll deal with it. He can go home. Don't slack off, Will."

"Okay," Will said. His voice seemed to have shrunk.

"Should I leave?" Nico asked awkwardly.

"No," said Will.

"Sure," said his father.

"It's fine, Dad," Will said. "He can just study while I play."

His father sighed. "Fine. Nico, don't distract him. He has a showcase coming up, you know."

"Yes, sir."

Unfortunately, his father seemed to notice he had said it sarcastically. He glared at Nico. Nico stared back. He wasn't afraid of grown-ups, nor did he really care. Let him hate him. This could be fun.

Will pushed him out of the doorway.

"Okay, we're going."

They went back up the stairs.

"What was that all about?" asked Nico.

"Oh, I just have to practice piano. Just get your stuff and study in the living room while I play."

"Is this normal?"

"Are you kidding?"

"What? Oh, well, I don't know."

"Nico, be careful," Will said.

"Be careful of what?"

"My dad."

"I wasn't doing anything."

"Yes you were."

Nico smiled slowly. "Well, I mean-"

"It's not funny," Will said abruptly.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Yeah."

Nico collected his things, embarrassed. So Will cared about his parents. Well, he supposed he had expected that too.

The piano in the living room was nice, to say the least. It probably cost more than Nico's car. Though that wasn't saying much.

He almost didn't want to sit on the couch, it looked so clean. And the coffee table, laid out with kitschy shit. There was candy. Nico shoved more than a few in his pockets. He got out his things, but he didn't really feel like working anymore.

Will sat down at the piano. His shoulders straightened, he stretched out his fingers. It made Nico smile.

"Who do you think you are, Mozart?"

"Shut up, Nico."

"How many times have you told me that today?"

"A lot. But you've told me it more."

"Very true."

And then Will started to play, and Nico really did shut up.

God damn, how his fingers moved.

Nico had never really listened to classical music, but he was pretty sure that this was what it was supposed to sound like.

He walked over and stood behind Will to watch his fingers dance, dance lightly and skim over the keys as if the were guided by a force other than his own.

It was fucking beautiful. It really was.

He was almost disappointed when it ended.

"What do you think?" Will asked. Hands in his lap now.

"Wow," was all Nico could say.

"Sorry, I'm gonna have to play it over and over. I have to weed the mistakes out."

There were mistakes?

"No, play it again. Play it as many times as you want," Nico said, and he sat back down on the couch and pretended to work, but the only thing he could concentrate on was the music that was gliding out of Will's hands and the way his body moved to make it.

He would have been jealous, but how could he be jealous of something like that?


	9. Chapter 9

Will remembered that moment all too well.

They had been about to kiss! They had!

But the more he thought about it, the more he felt like he was imagining it. Surely it hadn't been like that. But it had been something. Will couldn't ignore the fact that something had passed between them, something small and yet so large it had felt like a bullet had passed through his head, his heart. In that moment, he could have sworn that Nico had felt the same way.

And then the moment had passed, as quickly as it had come, and Will had not felt it since. At least not in the same context. At various points he did indeed feel that Nico was somewhat interested, but in what way Will wasn't sure. It had given him a small thrill to feel Nico standing behind him at the piano, almost pressing against him; his hands reaching over Will's shoulder and turning the sheet music pages for him. He didn't have to be so close, did he? And yet he had. And he had stood there until Will had finished practicing. Nico's proximity had made Will nervous, he was making careless mistakes, but Nico either hadn't noticed or didn't care. Every time he had practiced after that he had imagined Nico standing behind him, like a ghost, though the pages would not turn themselves.

But if Nico had not noticed the errors, Will's parents had. And so he was made to sit down and play the song he had already known for months, twenty more times, thirty more times, until it was perfect. And his father or mother would stand in the exact same place Nico had stood. But it was hardly the same feeling, less like watching over him and more like scrutinizing him, they watched his fingers for trips and tumbles, listened for the slightest discordant tone. They did not wait patiently, and it was only after an hour that they begrudgingly accepted that yes, Will did indeed know how to play the song correctly. And if there was no more struggle with the song, well then, Will knew they would start all over with the next piece. Will wished Nico would come back, but he hadn't worked up the nerve to ask him. It had been about a week.

If it was even possible, Nico seemed more real to Will than ever. To see him in class was to be distracted, which inevitably happened every day. Will always paid attention to the teacher. But lately he found it hard to. He would always catch himself drifting towards Nico, and he would (admittedly, not so discreetly) find himself downright staring at him. Nico mostly pretended not to notice, but Will knew that he did. It was embarrassing, and Will couldn't help it. Sometimes it was a small prize to be caught by Nico, who would occasionally offer a half smile, chin on his hand, or more often a glare. Will didn't really care which one. Sometimes he would even glare back, and Nico would try not to laugh.

Will couldn't exactly put a label on their relationship. It seemed they were friends. But were they really? Nico had never referred to them as such, and besides, it didn't really feel that way. It wasn't that it felt like something less, it was just different. Maybe even something more, but Will could never tell. Mixed signals would be the death of him. And he was forced to admit that the only reason it seemed that Nico had maybe an inkling of the same thoughts was that Will was imagining it to be that way. That he was so entwined around Nico that he believed there was no possible way that Nico didn't feel the same. That because he had this obsession every little thing Nico did seemed to be amplified, twisted around, interpreted as something more than it actually was. Will seemed to have little control over his own emotions. He felt as if he were on drugs.

And so when Nico asked him if he could come over again, Will said yes immediately. Literally, immediately. Nico had barely finished his sentence.

Having not thought it out, he ended up having to take Nico to tennis practice with him. Will was decent at tennis, but not as good as piano. He wished he had thought it through, because this was even more nerve-wracking than Nico watching him play music. Nico just stood there, leaning against the chain link fence, following the ball back and forth over the net. Every once in awhile, he would smirk, as if he was watching something funny. Will tried not to notice him, because like before, he found himself way more susceptible to mistakes.

When he had finished the second set Nico brought him water.

"No offense, but tennis is stupid," he said.

"Offense taken," said Will, grabbing the water bottle out of his hands. "I'm working my ass off out there."

"Sorry, that was rude," Nico said, putting his hands up. "I just don't get the point. It's so boring."

"It's not when you play," said Will. "It's a whole lot of exercise."

"Yeah, not for me. You look good though."

"Really?"

I'm so out of breath.

I'm sweating.

I must look terrible.

But he thinks I look good?

"Yeah. From what I can tell you seem like you at least know how to hit the ball."

He's not talking about what you look like, stupid!

"Oh. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Now give me the water back, the sun is hell."

"I think I need it for than you."

"Hey, I brought it for you. It's my turn."

"Or, you know, you could walk the one minute to the water fountain."

"Fair point. Good luck."

"Thanks."

Will watched him walk away, saw him run his fingers through his hair. The whistle snapped him out of it and he got back on the court. The sun was hot, and he just wanted it to be over. The racket felt heavy in his hands. He wanted it to end, so he could go home with Nico. When it finally did end, lo and behold, Will lost the match. He hadn't been expecting much.

When he walked back to the gym to put away the equipment, someone hugged from behind. He almost dropped the box of tennis balls he was holding. Luckily he didn't. Catastrophe averted.

"Will!"

Hands over his eyes.

"Guess who it is."

"I don't know. Cecil."

He knew.

"No, what the hell! You know who it is!"

"You just asked me to guess, Lou Ellen."

"Ha!" she said, pulling back. "I knew you knew."

Will felt slightly annoyed. Usually he wouldn't be, but he had somewhere to go. Lou Ellen tended to talk a lot.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked.

"Dance team. Extra practices. Tennis?"

"Yep."

"Hey listen," she said. Her face was faintly flushed. "Do you want to come over after my practice ends? I know you're done. We can study, or something."

"I'm sorry, Lou Ellen," Will said. "I already have plans."

She stuck out her lower lip. Honestly, there was never a time when her face wasn't animated. "That's what you said last time. You had to tutor Nico. What is it this time? Don't tell me it's the same thing."

"Actually, he's coming over to my place. Sorry."

Her eyes bugged out. "He's coming over to your house?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Nico DiAngelo?"

"Lou Ellen, haven't we been over this? Yes, him."

"You picked him over me?"

"Oh my god, that's hardly the case."

"But now you're actually hanging out with him."

"I guess, yeah."

"Will, I don't trust him. I'm sorry. I'm just saying."

He looked into her eyes. She was being earnest. But it annoyed him even more. What did she know about Nico? She had never even really talked to him. She couldn't know him like Will knew him. And besides, she didn't even know half of the circumstances. And she would never, as far as Will was concerned.

But still, a part of him felt bad. He had ditched her more than once now. They were friends, they were good friends. They usually hung out, but that was before Will had started tutoring Nico. And now, something seemed different. Will knew that he wasn't as interested in being with Lou Ellen as before. How could anyone seem interesting compared to Nico? But that was such a bad thing to say. It wasn't like his other friends had done anything wrong. Especially Lou Ellen.

But still, the other thing that seemed different. The kiss. It seemed that Will could not erase the feeling of it. How wrong it came to be. How odd it felt. And she was looking at him differently, as if with new eyes. It made him very uncomfortable. He hoped that she wouldn't want to kiss him again. But a part of him knew that she wanted to, that she wanted to almost as much as Will wanted to kiss Nico. Maybe even more, if that was possible. So for her to say she didn't trust Nico, Will was confused about her motives. Lou Ellen was a generally easy person to read. But still, Will couldn't be sure.

"Why don't you trust him?" he said. "Have you ever even met him?"

"Well, no," she admitted. "But I've heard stories, Will. He just sounds… bad. Not like you. I know you don't think so, but you should be careful. You can't rule out everything. I'm sure there's a lot he doesn't tell you."

"Thanks, Lou Ellen, but I think I can take care of myself."

"Just keep that in mind," she said, and flounced off.

He could tell she was mad. And when she was pissed like that, she tended to spout whatever was floating around the top of her head. But still, what she said scared him somewhat.

What did he know about Nico, anyway? What did he think he knew? Nico hadn't really told him anything about himself at all. But somehow he explicitly trusted Nico. Why was that? Just because he was good looking and could reduce Will into a puddle of nothingness? That wasn't it. Well, maybe a part of it. But Will had an underlying trust for Nico, a comfort, and he wasn't about to let it go. Let Lou Ellen talk, she was probably just jealous because she didn't get to hang out.

But a part of what she had said stayed with him.

As Nico drove him home, he quickly forgot about it. He listened to his laughter, and he forgot about it.

In the wake of the car exhaust, his laugh seemed to leave a ringing trail.

Nico actually didn't think tennis was boring when Will was playing. But when anyone else was, frankly, it was terrible.

Will reminded him of some kind of Roman statue, the way his body moved. He seemed to be in the epitome of shape. Compared to Nico anyway, who didn't even want to know how little he weighed these days. When he swung, when he ran, when he hit, all Nico could think was how powerful his body looked, how his muscles were briefly outlined every time his stupid tennis shirt tightened. He was seventeen, and he was in his prime. His hair was golden in the sun.

Whereas Nico stood slouched over watching him, a jacket on even though it was way too hot. His skin unaccustomed to the sun. Looking like a dead body, or something. Will got his energy from exercise and food, like a normal person. Nico got his energy from pills. Fun times.

And he couldn't deny how much he liked watching Will play. This was even better than the piano. Maybe he would get too hot and take his shirt off.

No homo.

Who the fuck was he kidding?

But tennis? Tennis was the worst. That was saying something, since Nico hated most sports. And yet he could not take his eyes off the game. Well, Will.

Nico had been the one to ask to come over today. It had not occurred to him why he had asked. Even now he wasn't so sure. His mind was no doubt messing with him. It wouldn't be the first time.

Don't do drugs, kids.

He was aware of that one instant, when he had had the notion to kiss Will. Almost an intolerable need, as if he had to do it. But he hadn't, because the connection was broken the minute Will's stupid dad called him downstairs.

Nico had thought about what it would be like to kiss boys before. Not even in a particularly gay way, he just liked kissing people. He liked kissing good looking people. He wondered how it would feel, to run his hands down a male body, to not feel curves but instead muscles, to press against someone stronger than he was. Okay, that was pretty gay. But still, he wondered. Will was a good test subject. He wanted to try. He wanted to see. So maybe that was his motive in coming over.

But he also just wanted to be around Will. And he knew that Will wanted to be around him. Nico felt bad to tease him, to flirt with him, but he still liked doing it. It was obvious, so obvious, that Will was into him in some way. Definitely wanted to be friends. More than friends, debatable. But still a viable theory. Nico was positive that Will had also wanted to kiss him. As positive as he was that Will kept staring at him in class.

And so Nico played with him. Just lightly. But still enough to get something out of Will. Touching him at various times, saying things he maybe shouldn't say, then passing it off as nothing and at some points withdrawing altogether. Nico was sure, he knew that if he decided to make a move on Will, Will wouldn't resist. Partly because of what he must feel by now, partly because he was so inexperienced. Nico had never done anything to a guy, but he was pretty sure he could do it right. Well, to be honest, he could do anything with Will and Will would like it. Because he didn't know any better.

But he felt bad. Because that wasn't really how he felt about Will, the person, not the body. The body, yeah, he wanted to try out, but there was also the person underneath, and that intimidated him. Then he was actually loving someone, a boy, and not just the experience. And Will wasn't an object, after all, for Nico to fantasize about. He was a real person, and a person who might have actual feelings for him. So Nico had to be wary about that. And he had to worry about himself, and his own feelings. Did he actually feel something for Will, or was he just intrigued by the idea of him, about what it might feel like.

And it scared him that underneath he might actually have real feelings.

Because that wasn't something he could pass off as simple curiosity.

He could hear Will now, in the passenger seat, talking about something that Nico wasn't listening to. He didn't know what Nico was thinking. If he did, he might wonder why the hell he wasn't running away. Or maybe he would be intrigued. Doubtful.

He thought of Thalia. He hadn't kissed her either, but he knew he could and would. She wouldn't mind at all. Hard to get, please, she wanted him as he knew it. She was the exact opposite of Will. They would have a nice time, there was no doubt in Nico's mind that she was good. It was something Nico had done before, something he had practice with and knew how it would turn out. But besides that, what about her? What about her attracted him? Was it just her looks? He didn't feel like he had to be with her. Sure, she was great, and he couldn't deny how much he wanted her. But was it all of her, or was he just interested in what would inevitably come to pass in his back seat, in her bedroom?

It was frustrating. It made him feel shallow. And he knew it was, it was shallow, and that he was acting like every other idiotic guy he had ever met. Except for Will, Will was different. Will did not think about sex all the time, he didn't care about trivial things like that. He was not corrupted. And Nico was worried, ever so worried, that he would change Will. If they kept hanging out, if they kept getting closer. He knew that Will didn't think so, but there was so much, so much, that WIll didn't know about him. He wanted Will to stay the way he was. Pure. The best thing Will had found in a long while.

And that was relationships, that was sexual, that was a way of thinking. That wasn't even taking into consideration the drugs.

Will was a child. He was seventeen, but he was a child. And Nico supposed that he was too, but he had grown up quickly. Too quickly.

And there was always the possibility that Will would be scared, was scared of what he was feeling. Will who had never felt something like this, and probably never about a boy. And if Nico was to spring on him, plunge him full into whatever he wanted, Will might not be ready for it. Even kissing, something as simple as that. Being in a relationship. But Nico had never really even been in a relationship either.

He was getting ahead of himself. And he realize that he had just thought of what would happen if he tried to make a move on Will Solace.

I must be going crazy.

I don't like him like that.

Then why was he thinking all this?

No matter how he denied it, he felt something for Will. There was something there, and Will was even more aware of it than he was. Will didn't deserve all this. He shouldn't be subjected to Nico and his messed up train of thought.

And this was only a tiny portion of his problems, a tiny star in a wide constellation, but still it shone brightly. And right now it was the only thing he could see.

He made up his mind that he would not hurt Will. In any way. He would guide his actions around the promise.

There was a million ways to consider this, to look at it, to overthink it; and Nico simply didn't have time.

It felt even hotter in the car. For the first time, Nico wished for air conditioning. The ride seemed longer than usual, and Will kept talking, and Nico kept listening, but he found he could not pinpoint anything he was saying.

By the time they got to Will's house it was nearly dinner time, and Nico was wondering why he even had wanted to come over in the first place.

But Will's mother asked him to stay for dinner, and he had to agree. After all, he wasn't working today, so he had no way to eat.

They went up to Will's room, and Nico sat down on his bead, then gave up and lied down, facing the ceiling.

"Why are you tired?" asked Will. "I was the one exercising. You just stood there."

"Standing can be hard."

"Are you okay? You said you hadn't eaten anything today."

"Yeah, I'm fine."

I will be after I go home and take these pills.

"Well, we'll have dinner soon. Make it until then. I'm gonna change shirts. It's like someone dumped water on me."

Don't look.

Don't look, goddamnit!

But he did.

He liked what he saw. Christ, it was even better than he had imagined. No girls had lines like that, though it wasn't even like he had a ton of muscles, or anything. It was such a waste that Will was a nerd. He could really get it if he wanted to. And then it was gone, a shirt was back on, and Nico was embarrassed to find that he was disappointed.

Nico was thinking about sex so much today that it wasn't even funny. He prayed nothing embarrassing would accompany that.

He wanted something to happen, he needed something to happen, something to take his mind off of… well life, really. He didn't care what it was. Something that could make him forget, to make everything not so terrible. And he knew he could never do anything to Will, so that left him with one option.

But he didn't have any pills on him right now, and if he was going to be staying here for a while there was no way he could go home and get some. He would have to wait it out, and wait it out with his perverted thoughts and shaking hands. God, he was a joke. A fucking joke.

And he heard his voice, softly.

"Nico, are you okay?"

He realized he had his eyes closed. He opened them slowly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

And he knew that Will knew he wasn't fine, he wasn't fine at all.

Nico was a messed up human being, and to involve Will in himself was a crime.

He saw Will's face above him. His eyes were wide, his mouth soft and honest. His face, his mind, unspoiled.

So wrong, so wrong.

He grabbed Nico's hand and pulled him up off the bed. They walked down the stairs, and Nico forgot to let go.

And yet he had never felt more isolated. He felt dirty, contaminated, and he knew he didn't belong here, in this house, holding Will's hand. He would defile Will like he had defiled him in his mind. Maybe he already had. Will had done nothing to deserve this, Will was perfect. And Nico didn't know how he could possibly come out of all this, whatever this was, unscathed.

A squeeze on the hand once, the dropped and let go.

The implications didn't occur to him. He thought about that hand all through dinner, and only forgot once he was high.


	10. Chapter 10

"So what can I get you?"

"I thought you were a busboy."

"It's a small place. I fill in when guys are out sick."

Nico waited, pen over paper.

"Hurry up. My shift ends in like ten minutes here."

Will sat in the booth, the neon from late evening glaring in through the window. He had never really been to the Stacey's before, it wasn't really his thing. But here he was, way too late on a Friday, waiting for Nico to finish his shift. And now Nico was waiting on him. Really unprofessionally.

He could tell that the whole situation made Nico uncomfortable. It was he who had asked Will to come, something about tutoring, but Will couldn't fathom why he would want to be tutored at ten o'clock at night on a Friday. Regardless, he had agreed. It was Nico, after all. Will would always agree. Still, Nico looked as if maybe he had reevaluated. He seemed to look around the restaurant almost with paranoia, to shrink back, he fidgeted awkwardly in his clothes.

That uniform, though. Will had almost laughed out loud. It was the last thing he had expected Nico to ever wear. (Though Nico had informed him many a time that it was mandatory, and that he had absolutely not chosen to wear it himself.) It was slightly ridiculous even for someone who didn't wear black all the time. Nico pulled at his collar irritably, the bow tie even more. He wore a name tag: Hi! My name is Nico! Ask me about my Stacey's Spirit!

Will couldn't help but tease him.

"Hey Nico, tell me about your 'Stacey's spirit'."

"How about no?"

"You're such a bad employee. Why don't they fire you?"

"Because I do my damn job. Now order, or I'm not getting you anything."

"I'm so not giving you a tip."

"Cheap ass."

"Is that even a word?"

"It is now."

But Will actually thought he looked nice like this, dressed up, slightly flushed in his cheeks. He looked clean for some reason, as if he had just taken a shower. No fancy clothes could keep his hair from falling in his eyes. Nor for that matter counter the look of rebellion on his face. Rebellion, was it? Maybe more like fuck you all. Will wondered why he even worked at Stacey's if he hated it so much. He finally decided it would be best to shut up and order. Nico rolled his eyes, scribbled something down in his pad. He was smiling.

The neon flickered. Will felt nervous, somehow. He now had one more memory to keep in his mind, one more memory about Nico. It was its own proper shelf in the library, its own collection. And last week, when they had walked down the stairs, and Nico had not let go of his hand. Had he forgotten? Impossible. Will could not see how he could have done so, how he could have somehow not been aware of what he was doing, of what implications he had brought forth, spilled onto the table. That and the almost-kiss, the almost-kiss and the sun beating down on the car, that and the slight touches, all this and that amounted to everything and absolutely nothing in Will's mind.

He was dreaming about him. He was pining over him. And still he did not have him. A part of him was convinced that he never would. And another part of him was sure that something was there, something hidden, but being uncovered more every day.

What was it between them that was so much? Will couldn't think of any other way to describe it. It was so much, it was a lot, it was a vast amount of something that Will could not comprehend, but it was bound between them and linked them like a telephone wire outlined by stars. He could feel it, and it appeared ordinary, but he could feel it was something more, and he hoped to god that he wasn't imagining that it was there.

But Nico…

How did Nico feel?

What did he think, with his guarded mind? What did he feel at night, when there was nothing to do but fall into his own thoughts? Did he think of Will? Did he think of him often? The ambiguity of it was monumental, but it was unchanging.

And yet Will carried on, as if they were just friends, joking and talking and laughing. Because maybe that was all that they were. It was so easy at times and so hard at others that Will felt that it was impossible to remain there, in limbo; it was too hard to just be what they were. Nico was there, always there, in his mind. He bloomed before him like a flower and bloomed back down, opened and closed.

Was tonight a good night? Or a bad one? It was hard to tell.

Everything was hard to tell. It was only Nico's face he saw with clarity.

He watched him come back, balancing the tray on his shoulder. He saw him set it down, slide into the booth. Saw him take a rag out his pocket and wipe his hands. He saw everything, and yet he saw nothing.

"Happy?"

Will was almost startled. Sound was coming out of his subject.

"Yeah. Still not tipping you though."

"Come on. Why not?"

He leaned forward across the table, his eyes gleaming. Chin on his hand, like he had a habit of doing. All this habit, all this something he did naturally. Something that Will could never acheive himself.

"Aren't I a good worker?"

Will withdrew his breath, it disappeared somewhere inside of him. Careful, now… He saw Nico part his lips, ever so slightly. He was much too close. For a second Will's mind imploded.

He's gonna kiss me!

No, it was habit, and Nico slunk back into his seat slowly as he had done so many times before.

"I… I guess," Will said softly. He cleared his throat. Nico looked amused, not so surly now.

Why does he have to do this?

He must be imagining things, he must be imagining Nico's shoe pressing against his leg, running up and down. It took all his willpower not to sigh.

Should he mention it? He looked at Nico hurriedly, frightened, almost. Nico looked straight back at him. Directly. So he must know what he was doing, why was he doing it?

Is this okay?

And then all the sudden the pressure on Will's leg dropped and Nico straightened up, almost snapping to attention. His eyes changed.

He looked scared.

Will could see people coming towards them, a group of four. Will knew who they were, but not by name. They were not the kind of people he would want to be on a first-name basis with. Not at all. And they were walking towards their booth. He looked to Nico, but Nico did not look at him.

The foremost of the group spoke first, a tall stringy-looking guy with blond hair.

"Hey Nico, whatcha doing?"

His voice did not seem entirely inviting.

"Nothing much," Nico said, staring at the table. "Just finished my shift."

"Do you think you could get us anything free?"

"Naw."

"You sure?"

"I said no, Octavian, I'm busy."

Octavian seemed to notice Will for the first time.

"Who's this?"

"That's Will," Nico said dully, still looking down.

"Hey," said Will. Octavian did not respond. Instead, he turned to Nico.

"I didn't know you had a boyfriend, Nico."

"He's not my boyfriend," Nico said, so low Will could barely hear him. He slid farther down in the booth, as if trying to hide.

Will didn't know what was going on, and he was too confused to have an opinion. All he knew was that Nico was acting strange. Nico never backed down. Nico always tried to be superior. But now he wasn't, and Will knew that something was wrong. He wasn't sure what, but something was wrong. And boyfriend? Had Octavian seen? How obvious had it been?

What had even been happening?

Octavian laughed. "I must say, Nico, I expected you to get fucked by guys in prison, but never so soon."

Will couldn't help it, he gasped, and the group laughed again. He could feel his cheeks flushing; he looked to Nico for help but was offered none.

Nico's voice remained monotone. "We're not even friends. He's my tutor. Mr. Carver made me."

"Chill out, man, I'm just joking."

Nico didn't say anything. Octavian clapped him on the shoulder.

"Come on, man. You know why I'm here."

Nico looked up, sharply, his brow creased. "Wait, what-"

"You're late."

"Look, can we talk about this later? Now's not the best time."

"Fine. Fine, continue on with your date. Sorry to intrude."

"Bye, Octavian."

"See ya, Nico. I'll give you two more days, and that's it."

"Fine."

Nico closed his eyes.

Will was confused. He watched Octavian and his friends walk away, heard the jingle of the bell as they left out the door. He had no idea what had just happened. And he had the slightest inclination that maybe he didn't want to.

But he had understood two things. One was that Nico had not even attempted to retaliate. Will could tell that he was angry, his fists had tightened, the veins pressing white against his skin. His eyes tilted down, vaguely dull, but behind it, a churning. Nico had been mad. So why hadn't he said anything?

And the second thing was something that Nico had said.

We're not even friends.

It was petty, Will knew, it was childish; but it almost made him want to cry. He didn't even want to be friends, did he? He wanted… he didn't even know what he wanted. But to hear Nico confirm Will's suspicions, his fears; it hurt. Will was his tutor, Nico was the pupil. Nothing more, apparently.

It seemed silent, even as the diner talked around them.

"Nico-"

"Can I take you home? Let's go home."

He got up and walked fast, taking his jacket and keys with him. Will had to almost run to keep up with him.

"Nico, wait!"

Nico kept walking, his hands in his pockets and Will followed, almost desperately, almost tripping in the dusty light. They were out in the parking lot now, almost empty.

When Nico fiddled his keys in the car lock, Will grabbed him. He took him by the shoulders and spun him around. Nico looked up at him, and his eyes held a mixture of something Will couldn't describe. For a second he seemed vulnerable, and small, pressed up against the car door.

"What are you doing, Nico? Where are you going?"

"Home. I'm taking you home, and then I'm driving myself home."

"What happened back there?"

"Nothing."

"Nico!"

Will couldn't help it, he wanted to know. He needed to know. And he knew Nico wasn't going to tell him, but he had to try.

It was that comment, that one comment that had set him on edge. Friends, enemies, more than that, less than that, Will didn't care, he just wanted to know. He wanted to know so bad it seemed to take control of him, and he somehow liked the feeling of Nico looking up at him, defiantely but also somehow softly. His eyes reflected the lights around him, spinning, like globes. Pink neon above them, on the side of the restaurant. Open 24 hours.

"They're my friends, Will," he said quietly. "They're just being idiots."

"Your friends," Will said. "Those guys are your friends? What about what you said about us?"

"What do you mean?" He looked, and Will could find no other way to put it, like a child.

"You said we're not friends! Are we not even that, Nico? What are we, then?"

And suddenly all the childness left his face in a gasp of light, he tilted his chin slightly up. His face was illuminated. And Will was hit full on by him, by Nico, just everything he was. It hit him like an atomic bomb, it seemed, something collided and exploded, and if Will had thought he had been enraptured before it was nothing, nothing, compared to this. His face was perfect, more than Will had ever even imagined it could be, and to see it in the strange filters of neon was frankly breathtaking. Will's anger broke, for a minute, and his confusion seem to pass in a whirl, a gust of wind. He couldn't think.

"We're not friends, Will," said Nico, and he kissed him.

Will's mind shot apart into a million pieces, what was left was blankness, a white room. There was a slight pressure, on his lips and on his body, and then it was gone just as quickly as it came. And then it returned, stronger than before, and after that.

After one time he liked it. After two he was into it. And after three, four, five; he could tell he was addicted, Nico was like a drug to him, he was. It was cliche a million times over but it was true; Will could feel him in his veins.

It was a blur, but Nico was in clarity, and it was late before he drove Will home.


	11. Chapter 11

It seemed that Christmas vacation had come fast.

How many days had passed since they had kissed?

Ten.

How many times had they talked about it?

Zero.

It hadn't even been mentioned. Will was half convinced that yet again, he had been imagining things.

But this time it wasn't the same. It had been real. The feelings; the cold outside, the blankness of the lights, the feeling of Nico's lips and Nico's skin touching his own, it was all real. It was something he couldn't forget, couldn't have made up after all, because it had felt so, so, real. Maybe more real than Will had ever felt before in his life.

They had been making out, Will supposed that's what they had been doing. And then they had broken apart, maybe a car had started to drive in or drive out, or someone had needed to breathe for one second too long. And it was over far quicker than it had lasted. There had been a moment of silence, and Will had looked at Nico, looked at him hard. Nico had looked back at him, then looked away.

He had looked sorry. Like he regretted it.

Will almost had leaned in again, but Nico had slid out from the car door and walked to the driver's side. Will stood there, confused. But also not being able to think anything else, not being able to think of anything except for what had just happened, and how his face was no doubt burning in the flat lights.

"Get in the car, Will."

"Yeah, okay."

Not another word was exchanged the entire drive to Will's. And in the silence everything seemed painfully loud, the car horns and the street noises. Will felt like they were trying to penetrate his mind, like too loud drums at a concert. And the lights were swirling colors as Nico drove, drove too fast, his fingers shaking on the wheel. Will felt dizzy. And yet he didn't say anything. Nico dropped him off, Will had thanked him, he had not slept that night. The next week, Nico had shown up for tutoring as usual. It was as if nothing had happened.

And now Will was still thinking about it. Thought about it always; on the way to school, at home, tennis, piano. And every time he saw Nico, the scene in the parking lot seemed to flash through his mind, reminding him for the thousandth time.

Will had not entirely figured out what it was he felt. He was angry, that was for sure. After the initial confusion had passed. Why hadn't Nico said anything? Not even texted. Not even a smile, nothing to let Will know that what had happened was intentional. Forget intentional, Will wanted to know, know more than anything, if what had happened was true. Not like whether it had happened or not. But rather if the intentions were there, and if Nico had felt the same way; something sort of romantic and whatever it was that Will felt but could still not exactly describe. If it had been mirrored out in front of him, his thoughts' reflections. What if it was physical? Will didn't even want to think about that. For some reason, the thought repelled him, even though it wasn't like Will hadn't had those thoughts too.

Nico had stranded him. He really had. And that wasn't even mentioning whatever had happened in the restaurant, with Octavian. Had that had something to do with the kissing? Will couldn't imagine how, but maybe. At this point, he would consider anything. And how odd Nico had acted. Honestly, Will hadn't thought about it much, because what had happened outside of the restaurant had been so much bigger.

Simply put, Will was miserable.

And it didn't help now that he was serving eggnog, forced into a Christmas sweater from three years ago with the fakest smile he had ever worn plastered on his face.

Will hated his parent's parties. They always had three a year: Fourth of July, some sort of Spring get together, and Christmas. It was Will's first day on break, the real holiday wasn't for five days. But still, he had already been forced to socialize with too many of his father's friends whose names he couldn't remember, and too many of his mother's friends who told him, over and over again, how cute he was. So Will had smiled, and laughed, and been generally amicable. But inside he felt like crap. Just plain awful. He could have sworn that "Little Drummer Boy" had played more than five times now. And people were still ringing the doorbell.

After a while his mother had gotten tired of his blank looks and had sent him to work at the dessert table. Will had lost track of how many cookies he had eaten ages ago, but he didn't really care. He felt like time had slowed down. The room felt like it was suffocating him.

The doorbell rang for the fiftieth time, but this time it was finally someone Will knew.

Lou Ellen came waltzing in, her parents behind her. She was wearing a short dress, something that Will had never seen her in before. It was green. Will secretly thought it looked tacky. Like a Christmas tree. But, what he was wearing wasn't much better, so who was he to judge.

Lou Ellen's mom worked with Will's dad. He hadn't made this connection until he had become friends with her, and from then on she had come along to the parties with her parents. They were usually the only older kids there, so they tended to stick around each other. But this time, as she walked in, Will hoped she would leave quickly. He really didn't want to socialize anymore.

"Will, come say hello!"

He shoved the last of a cookie in his mouth and trudged over to the group.

Lou Ellen hugged him aggressively. He could smell her perfume, almost nauseating; something flowery. As they pulled apart, he could see that she was wearing more makeup than usual. Her eyes looked bright, and big.

"You look nice," he said without thinking.

"Thanks," she said, smiling a little. "So do you."

Their parents laughed. Will saw his mom and Lou Ellen's exchange a wink. His heart sank.

"You two go mingle," said his mother, pushing Will forward.

"Be responsible!" said Lou Ellen's father. He clapped Will hard on the shoulder, almost making him fall over.

"Daddy!" Lou Ellen protested.

The adults laughed again.

Will they ever shut up?

He was almost glad when Lou Ellen took him by the arm and dragged him away.

Ten minutes later they had finished making their rounds. Will usually liked to see Lou Ellen talk, She handled herself well, especially around adults. He could tell they were all impressed by her, charmed by her. Vaguely he knew he was usually the same way, but he felt so detached from himself that it seemed unreal. Man, he was taking this way too hard. Nico was all he could think about. But not that that was anything new. He and Lou Ellen stood by the food table; while she took over the serving role he stood idly beside her, watching her smile outwards, as if trying to reach everyone.

"Wow, your mom really went all out on the decorations," she said, looking around.

"Yeah, she makes a big deal about these things."

"They're so cute!"

"Eh."

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She turned him around and looked up at his face.

"Will…"

"What."

"You're not okay, are you? It's okay, you can tell me."

"I'm fine, Lou Ellen."

"No you're not! I can tell, okay! It's obvious."

"Oh really."

"Well, for one you've eaten like four cookies since we've been here."

"So? I'm hungry."

"You're always the one that's worried about what you eat."

"... I don't worry about that."

"Yeah, you're always like, 'must stay in shape for tennis! taking care of my body is sooo important!' "

"I don't say that."

"See, you are in a bad mood. You're being mean."

Finally he felt sorry.

"I'm just tired, that's all. I hate these parties."

"Aw, I'm sorry," she said. To his immense relief she seemed to believe him.

"It's fine."

"The cookies are pretty good, though. I don't blame you."

"I made them, actually."

"You did? That's so cool!"

It's really not that cool.

Will felt bad, he really did, but at this point he was so down on himself that he wasn't sure how he would ever get back up. Actually, he knew how.

He would feel better if Nico would show up, right now, and somehow all the adults and Lou Ellen and his parents would suddenly disappear. And Nico would be standing on his doorstep, underneath the Christmas lights, his breath coming out in small clouds.

Why are you doing here? Will would say with an air of indifference. It wasn't like he was waiting for Nico to show up, or anything. He was fine on his own.

I had to come, Nico would say. Because I have something to tell you, Will.

What is it?

I'm… I'm in love with you.

And Will would seem to consider for a moment, but really he already knew what his answer would be.

I'm in love with you too.

And then Nico would step forward, and move in like he always did, so close their noses were almost touching. Maybe there would even be snow, even though there was never any in their part of California.

I know, he would say, and then he would kiss him and kiss him and kiss him some more.

"What are you smiling about?"

Will snapped to attention suddenly, the scene around him came back with sickening slowness. Lou Ellen was staring at him. Again.

"What?" he asked.

"You were smiling. But you looked kind of mad about it, or something. It was weird."

"Oh. Um...yeah, I was just thinking about… Romeo and Juliet."

"Same. I've still got lines to memorize. Of course you've already got it all down."

"Yeah, I highlighted and practiced in the mirror and stuff. I'm really nervous about opening night."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah."

She smiled. "That's what I like about you, Will. You're not like other boys."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Like, I don't know," she said, "You're more...sensitive. You aren't afraid of showing your feelings. And I feel like you actually understand girls."

"Oh… thanks, Lou Ellen."

"Yeah! You're like a gay best friend, but you're actually straight! You're the whole package!"

Will would have laughed. But it wasn't funny. It really wasn't. And was that really what she thought?

If it's too good to be true, then it is.

Little did she know. What would she think, he wondered, if he told her about Nico? If he really told her about how he felt, how it was like? And could he really even explain it, if he tried? He wondered what she would say. If she would be mad, if she would think it was 'cute.' He didn't think she could ever really understand, she just wasn't that type of person, if that made any sense. Or maybe she would understand, and maybe she could help. If Will told her.

But he wouldn't. He couldn't.

And just being in this environment. He stood in the house full of parents, smiling faces, Christmas, everything so neat and orderly; it all just reinforced the idea that he couldn't make them understand. One, they wouldn't know the feeling, the yearning; he looked around and saw only well dressed men with women, women with men. And two, they would never accept it! They wouldn't look at Will and see him as they had. His accomplishments, his everything; it would all be replaced with a different image. And to tell them that he was gay for a self-proclaimed failure, a not exactly saintly boy with million problems to pass on. They would not take it. He wildly imagined himself standing on the table, clinking his glass for attention. I have an announcement. I'm gay, everybody! He could see the wine glasses come crashing to the ground.

He felt trapped, suddenly. He had nowhere to go, nothing he could say; he could only be trapped inside himself. And the only person who could release him had given him a taste of freedom, only to shut him back in.

What did Nico mean? Where was he going with all this? Did he think it was funny, or that it was some sort of game to lead Will on? To try to see how far he could get before Will got fed up with it or fell in love with him completely?

It wasn't fair, it wasn't, it was not.

Nico had him tied up, he had him every which way and he was pulling on the binds, tightening them, and Will couldn't breathe.

He must know what he was doing, didn't he?

And Lou Ellen stood there, meaning well, but knowing nothing. Nothing at all.

He needed to sit down. To lay down and sleep would be even better. He felt slightly sick from eating so much crap. It was too hot, the room was too crowded.

"Am I?" he finally said.

"Yeah, you are, Will," she said. "Let's go to the kitchen. The eggnog needs refilling."

"Yeah, okay."

He followed her with almost robotic motions. The chatter faded slightly as they walked down the hallway.

Suddenly she stopped.

"Will, look up."

He did, and it took him a moment to process what he saw. She answered for him.

"It's mistletoe," she said, almost matter-of-factly, but almost as if with awe. She had that look in her eyes again, the look she had had after they had kissed for the first time on the school stage.

Oh no.

He took a step back, she took a step forward.

"We've kissed like five times now, Will, for the play. But we haven't really kissed, for real."

He was silent, hoping that his lack of encouragement would somehow deter her. But he knew it wouldn't work. When she set her mind to something, she went through with it. It appeared tonight was no different. He cursed his parents, who had hung the stupid plant with its stupid red ribbon smack in the center of the hallway, just waiting for someone to come by. And unluckily for him, he had gotten caught under it. It occurred to him that maybe they had done it on purpose. He sincerely hoped not.

Lou Ellen continued. "So… what do you say?"

"Uh..."

"Will, you're such an idiot."

And she threw her arm around his neck and kissed him, kissed him hard. Will was forced to catch her in his arms, to stop her from falling.

The kiss was no better than before. It was maybe worse, because he knew now for sure that she thought it was real. And so she threw herself into it, and Will felt he had no choice but to stand there, taking whatever she laid on him. Her perfume was in his nose again, his mind felt dull. He hoped someone would walk in the hallway and he would have an excuse to stop, but no one did.

Her body felt alien under his hands. It was too soft, too different from his own. When he had kissed Nico it seemed automatic. He hadn't even needed to think about what he was doing, the way his hands or lips were moving. And with Nico it had consumed him, and he had felt irrationally that he wanted Nico more than anything else in the world; that if he stopped, something bad would happen. That he needed him, and somehow Nico had made all that justifiable at the time. Now he let Lou Ellen tangle her hands in his hair; his lips were slack but she didn't seem to notice or care.

When she finally pulled away she smiled. The honesty of it made Will feel worse.

"You're special, Will," she said.

He didn't know what to say.

"Thanks," was all that came out.

She kissed him on the cheek and he looked straight ahead, praying she would stop. He didn't have the heart to tell her to do so, and yet he wanted her to so bad he would have given anything for it.

"We should probably go back out, the parents are probably wondering where we are."

"True. We can't have them think we're up to anything bad."

She winked then, and Will almost flinched.

Her face was round, and not unpleasant. But all he could see was how different it was from Nico's. He features were perfect, angelic; hers were not. His hair was dark, hers was not. He was skinny, she was not.

He was a boy, she was not.

And if only he could make her understand. It was so simple. He could just tell her. But he couldn't, because a million repercussions would follow. It would be different. A lot different.

It was as if he held the power in his hands to change his everything. And he did nothing with it, instead, he left it to rot until it finally broke down into nothingness. It didn't seem right.

But it was all he could do.

Maybe he was being overdramatic, maybe he was being selfish, but he didn't care. He uncomfortable. He was confused. And most of all he was angry at, he was sad about, and he was in love with Nico.

Imagine the amount of pain he could have saved himself if he had never met him. If he had never agreed to tutor him. If he had never agreed to laugh with him, to drive in his car, to kiss him.

He had never agreed to fall in love with him, and yet he had.

It always came back to Nico.

And Will wanted to distance himself from him, but he knew that he could never.

He was a part of him now; he had snaked his way into Will's mind, and he wasn't leaving any time soon. Will would hate him for it, but how could he possibly hate Nico?

It just went to show how much he was obsessed with him. He knew that Nico was playing him, and he didn't even care. Will had never felt dumber in his life. Lou Ellen was wrong, it wasn't Will who was special, it was Nico. Special Nico, with his looks and his kisses and his secrets and his ability to make Will forget everything else but him.

Was Nico thinking of him too? Will doubted it.

He followed Lou Ellen out of the hallway, their prior plans in the kitchen apparently forgotten. She was holding his hand.

Later that night, after the guests had gone, he helped his mother wash the dishes.

"Lou Ellen is a nice girl, isn't she?" she asked.

"Yeah, we're friends," Will responded, concentrating too hard on scrubbing a plate.

"Her mother informed me that she likes you."

Will barely stopped himself from sighing. His mother smiled.

"It's okay, I already know about you two," she said. "Don't worry, your father approves."

"There's nothing…"

"It's quite alright, you don't have to deny it. It's cute."

He didn't mean to, but he felt the plate drop out of his hands, and onto the kitchen floor. It shattered. The sound lasted for only a second, but it rang in Will's ears for several more.

His mother gasped. "Will! That's the good porcelain!"

He heard his father from the other room. "What's going on?"

"I'm sorry," Will said, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

He could hear them calling after him but he didn't care. He ran up the stairs and threw himself on his bed.

And he started crying, and he hated it, but he did.

He couldn't call himself a man anymore. He couldn't call himself much of anything.

His desk was empty, he hadn't even started his assignments. He hadn't done much of anything since the kiss, and the silence that had followed it.

It occurred to Will that this was maybe the worst he had ever felt in his life.

And it only made him feel worse, because he was sure the worst Nico had ever felt was a hundred, a thousand times worse than this.

Nico, Nico, it was always Nico and never Will.

It was Nico who held the power in his hands. And it was Will who let him.

He's terrible. You should hate him!

But he wasn't terrible. He was interesting. He was funny. He was sometimes sweet, and often times pensive, and always intriguing. He was a beautiful person.

Will didn't hate him at all, and so he concluded that he hated himself.

It was the first time he had felt like that.

It wasn't anyone's fault, was it? It had just been a mix-up, a mistake. Some miscommunication. Nico hadn't been mean to him. He hadn't ignored him. He had just acted like the kiss had never happened, like there hadn't been anything between them. Will knew there still was. There had to be. Will was blowing this out of proportion, as usual. But he couldn't help but take it harder than he should.

When he had calmed down some, he went to sleep. He was exhausted. By some miracle his parents let him.

The next morning, he woke up and felt better. Not that much, but a little.

There was no tv anymore, so Nico sat in the living room staring at nothing.

It was Christmas.

The only light on was the kitchen's, and Nico sat on the couch in semi-darkness, thinking. It was well past dinner time. He still hadn't eaten. As some kind of misguided present for himself he had went out and bought In-N-Out, but it stayed on the counter, uneaten. Every time he looked at it he felt sick. Burgers used to be his favorite food. He didn't know what had happened. Instead he had spent the whole day drinking water in hope that it would trick him into thinking he had eaten. It hadn't really worked. He wanted beer now, but he had no way to get it.

But for once he was good on pills. Right now he had lots of those. Octavian had given some freebies this time around.

"Merry Christmas," he had said.

Thanks.

He was coming off of a high, feeling somewhere in between. Maybe that was why it seemed like a viable activity to sit here in the dark.

As usual, his thoughts drifted to Will.

What was he doing right now? Probably surrounded by family. He probably had a fire burning in that giant fireplace of his, and maybe he was halfheartedly thanking an aunt for buying him socks. Or maybe he had just eaten Christmas dinner, something like that. Wherever he was, there was probably lots of light. Lots of talking. Lots of love.

Nico had always wondered what that word meant. Could he still hate someone and love them at the same time? And what constituted the word? Love. How could he know if he loved someone, like really loved them? Or if he was just in love with the idea of someone, or in lust with the way they looked?

How could he ever really know how he felt?

It had been a mistake to kiss Will.

But at the time he had wanted to. He had wanted to so badly it rushed up his breath, made him feel things; and admittedly not solely in the heart area. Once the idea had entered his mind he knew he wasn't going to stop it. Nico didn't seem to work that way. He wanted to try, so he would. He knew he had no self-restraint. None at all.

And so he had went with it, and he had sloppily delivered some cheesy line and kissed Will, and kissed him with all he had.

Ah, how it had played out before him, unfolding beneath his fingers. He could feel Will pressing him into the car. He could feel him, and he wanted to slide his hands under Will's shirt, and he wanted to slide his hands other places too, but he didn't because it was Will, Will who didn't know anything. And he felt like he had already been bad enough. Somehow he had come to his senses and broke it apart. But that hadn't happened for a while.

And so he had ruined Will's first kiss. Why had he kissed him? Because his hormones felt like it. Why else? Because a part of him was trying to cover up what had happened before.

Damn Octavian. Nico hated him, he really did. Fucking despised him. So it was funny that Octavian was the sometimes the only one who could make Nico happy, who gave him what he wanted. Nico had gotten the money, delivered it, and almost ran. He was slightly afraid of what would happen if he didn't. He wasn't usually afraid of Octavian, but for some reason, this time he had been.

So Will didn't know these things, he assumed. No, Will had probably assumed it was an honest to goodness, I love you, you love me, kiss. Nico would have thought that when they started making out Will would get the picture that maybe there was something else going on. Because Will was just like that. Inexperienced. Naive. He was trusting. Nico saw the way that Will looked at him, like he was the Messiah or some shit. It made him feel awful. And it made him feel more awful that he found he liked it. Then he had driven Will home, in silence, and he had not talked about whatever had happened in the back parking lot since. Poor Will was probably driven out of his mind. But Nico couldn't bring himself to correct the mistake.

Was it a mistake, though? Or was it meant to have happened? He felt, inexplicably, that there was something more. Something else. It wasn't that simple, and Nico couldn't explain it.

There was something about Will. He was happy when Will was happy, anxious when he wasn't. He liked watching Will, liked hearing him speak, watching his face light up when he talked about something he liked. He liked hearing about his thoughts, and his feelings; with anyone else Nico would have scoffed, but to Will he only encouraged him, no matter how unattainable. But Will could do anything in his eyes. And he always wanted to see him.

He wanted to be near Will, to have him close, because Will was so unlike him that Nico loved him for it.

So to attempt to encapsulate it all, Nico was curious about Will, he was jealous of him, he was absorbed, he was a million other things

I can't say what I want

that Nico didn't know how to handle.

It was so complicated, but it boiled down to something simple.

Nico cared about Will.

He cared about him a lot.

And he would have to figure out for himself what that meant. What that meant for them.

But he knew for sure that he had liked kissing Will.

But maybe he should take it slow? For Will's sake? Or maybe he should do nothing at all at let it fizzle out? In less than a year, they would never see each other again.

That was definitely not his style, not at all. But this felt different, not just because of boy and boy but because of Will, and how Nico felt was different.

So he still wasn't sure after literally days of deliberation.

Though one thing he was sure about was that he had Will on a string.

Nico had to admit the prospect of it was exciting. But the negatives far outweighed the positives. He just didn't want to hurt Will. But he was afraid that he would, and he was uneasily aware that maybe he already had.


	12. Chapter 12

A D.

Will stared at the paper.

A D.

He couldn't comprehend.

"Had an off day, Will?" the teacher asked.

"Ye-yeah, I guess…"

Will couldn't believe it.

All his life, he had never gotten anything lower than a B. On anything. And that was only once in eighth grade, he remembered specifically. And now a D?

Oh, his parents were going to kill him.

The test hadn't even been that hard. But when he had taken it, he had known from the start that he didn't know any of the information. Why? Because he didn't study. Why didn't he study? Because Nico had taken him out to eat. And Will had agreed to, before thinking about, because it was Nico and as far as Will was concerned at the time, homework could wait. When had he ever thought that before?

Maybe he was just so relieved that Nico still wanted to talk to him. Maybe it was because he was hoping that something might happen between them again. Or most likely it was because he missed Nico, and just wanted to see him again. They had gone to McDonald's, which Will secretly hated but Nico not so secretly loved. But when they had gotten their food, Nico only took a few bites before saying he wasn't hungry. Will wondered if he was sick. He kind of looked like it. He kept looking towards the bathroom, like he was going to get up, but he never did. Will decided that maybe it was best not to ask what was wrong.

They had talked about trivial things, about Christmas, about school, and about other things so irrelevant that Will no longer remembered what they were.

The whole time Will wanted to ask, more than anything, about the kiss.

What had it meant? Why had Nico not said anything about it all these weeks?

And how could he just leave Will alone, just like that?

But of course he hadn't been able to say any of those things, and Nico hadn't said anything either.

He had just looked at Will across the table, looked thoughtfully, and Will wondered whether he knew about all the pain he had caused him. He couldn't imagine he did. How could he possibly know? Otherwise Nico surely would have said something, would have done something to fix this mess. Will imagined what it would be like for Nico to know all that he felt. Not that it was possible to express it in words. And what would he think, if he saw all the hate and the obsession and the love all rolled up into one, presented before him? He wouldn't understand. There was no way he felt even a fraction of the same monstrosity, that's what it was. It was a monster that consumed him, and Nico would surely, surely, think he was crazy. Will already thought so.

It had been a week after Christmas, almost time to go back to school.

Will had a gift for him, wrapped in red and green reindeer wrapping. There wasn't anything else at the time to wrap it in.

He didn't know why he had given it to Nico, after everything that had happened. But he had imagined Nico spending Christmas alone, and it made him sad. It was the least he could do. He had slid the parcel across the booth table. Nico had looked up, as if doubtful.

"Is that for me?"

"Who else would it be for?"

Nico smiled then, almost bashfully, and Will couldn't help but smile back.

See what he does to me?

"Should I open it?"

"Go ahead."

Nico unwrapped the paper almost tentatively.

"Don't worry, it's not a bomb," Will said sarcastically.

"One can never be too sure."

Nico ripped open the package.

"It's...pencils."

Will got nervous.

"Well, yeah, I just thought because you always complain about how you never have any and you always lose them-"

"Will, stop talking."

"What?"

"Sorry. I love it. Thanks."

"Really?"

Will looked up at him slowly, almost not daring. Nico looked back at him, and the way in which he did so almost made Will shiver. His eyes looked something like liquid, and Will was melting in them, dark and warm and for a second, just one second, he could swear that Nico felt exactly the same. Exactly. He smiled normally but it was more than that, and maybe it was gratitude or something else but Will could swear it looked like affection.

"Yeah, I'm always stealing your pencils. Now I won't have to."

Will had laughed, it came easily, maybe because he was so relieved. Relieved because Nico liked the gift, sure, but also relieved because maybe there was still something between them. It was strange how one look could do that much for him, but he was prepared to take anything.

He got the feeling that maybe Nico didn't receive many presents.

"No, but really. Thanks, Will."

"Wait! There's something else…"

"Oh?"

Nico had rummaged back through the wrappings.

"It's a ticket," Will said. "To my play."

"Oh, Romeo and Juliet."

"Yeah, it's in about a week. Can you go?"

"Probably. Damn, I can't wait to see you and Lou Ellen make out."

"Really?"

"I'm kidding. I don't want to see you kiss her."

There had been a pause. Will's breath caught in his throat.

He could tell they were both thinking about what had happened behind the diner.

What do you want to see, then?

To feel?

Nico cleared his throat.

"I'll be there, Will. Thanks."

"No problem. Ready to head out? I'm tired."

"Yeah, sure."

They had walked out into the parking lot, it was dark. No neon this time.

Will walked slightly behind Nico, his outline seemed to glow slightly.

He wanted so badly to grab him, to have him against the car like before, he didn't care; he didn't care who was watching or how Nico felt about it. Because he knew what he felt, his feelings, they were so defined sometimes he thought they would cut through his chest. He wanted, he needed something, to happen. But it didn't.

Nico had stopped right before the car, and turned around.

"Thanks, Will. I really mean it."

That was all he had said.

And so how could Will explain to his parents that he hadn't been studying because Nico was on his mind, day and minute, night and hour?

It was so simple, but they wouldn't understand.

All that was left to do was forget about it. Maybe that would fix everything, though Will doubted it. But it seemed like the only thing he could do.

An A!

A fucking A.

Well, an A minus, but still, holy shit, for a split second Nico was so excited he couldn't think straight.

It was the best grade he had gotten in a long time. He used to get decent grades, way back when he actually thought trying would get him somewhere. He still believed that it wouldn't, 'trying' was never enough to fix something that couldn't be fixed. No, he was doing this for Will, and only for Will. It made Will happy in his odd academic mind, so by default, it made Nico happy.

But this time Will didn't seem that happy, for whatever reason. After class, Nico ran up to him in the hallway, brandishing the paper like it was a diploma.

"Look! Will! Look at what I got!"

He felt like a five year old, but he thought Will might think it was funny. Or cute.

"What did you get?"

"An A!"

Will smiled, but just barely. "Good job."

Nico pouted. "What, no congratulations? Where's the excitement?"

He stopped when he saw Will's face.

"Wait, what's up?"

"I got a D," Will said miserably.

Nico was momentarily dumbfounded before he pulled himself together. A perverted part of him wanted to laugh. But Will looked genuinely messed up about it.

"Hey, don't worry about it," he said. "A D's a good grade for me."

"Not for me."

"Hey…"

Nico reached out, to touch him, but Will recoiled. Nico stared. Did Will not want to be close to him anymore? Not even a tap? He could feel the empty question burning in the air between them.

He knew Will was resentful.

Nico wanted more than anything to tell Will that it was okay, he wanted to hold him and kiss him and tell him that yes, what had happened between them was fine, and that it could happen again. That it would happen again. And that was exactly what Nico would do if it had been okay. But it hadn't been. Okay for Nico, maybe, but not okay for Will. He didn't think that Will understood, sometimes a kiss was a kiss and nothing more than a brief hormone acceleration, an impulse. He didn't understand that Nico was really an awful person, and that if only Will knew everything about him he would surely go away, leave running, and never come back.

That was how Nico had justified it, and to protect Will and to protect himself he was going to stick with it.

But did Will not even want to be close to him anymore? Nico doubted it. He thought that maybe Will was distancing himself on purpose, trying to pretend like whatever had happened, whatever he had felt, hadn't been so. But he knew more than ever that Will was just waiting for Nico to say something, to do something; something that would forgive himself for everything.

Nico couldn't do that just yet. Or maybe ever. It wasn't good for Will. He wasn't good for Will.

"One bad grade's not going to kill you, Will."

"Yeah, but my parents might."

"Oh, come on. Your family's perfect."

"Maybe…"

Will's voice trailed off into the air, as if the wind had caught the end of his sentence and flown with it. Like a ribbon drifting; and Will looked down suddenly, angry and strangely confused.

Nico wanted to ask him more. But he could tell Will didn't want to talk about it.

Though his dad did seem like a dick. But most grownups acted that way to Nico, for good reason. But who would act like that towards Will, Will who had probably never done anything bad in his life?

They walked through the halls, and they seemed empty in Nico's attention. He could only register Will, it seemed, and it was a strange sensation.

"Hey, don't worry about it. I'll take you to Stacey's. I'll pay."

"Can I get something expensive?" Will asked, and Nico was relieved to see him begin to smile.

"Yeah, go for it."

Not like Nico had money to spare. But Will didn't have to know that.

"Thanks, Nico."

"No problem. Don't beat yourself up."

"I can't help it sometimes."

"You don't always have to be the best, you know that?" said Nico.

"But I do. You don't understand."

"You're right, I don't. You're hella smart, and I'm definitely not."

"You're smart, Nico. You just don't try. But I could be smarter. It's like I can never be good enough, and I work really hard and it doesn't work out. Then I can't let it go."

Nico sensed that maybe he wasn't just talking about school.

"But Will, you are good enough. Why the hell wouldn't you be? You're like that smartest in the class."

Will sighed. "But out of the school, what am I? Out of the state? Out of the country? The world? What am I compared to all of them? I'm nothing. I make mistakes and I'm naive and dumb and confused. Whatever I've built myself to be, it's not enough. And I feel like I've built myself wrong. Nico, I don't feel like I'm who I'm supposed to be."

It seemed like a cry, a downright plea, and Nico knew he couldn't answer it like Will wanted him too. But he had to try. He could tell that Will hadn't meant to say as much as he had. It seemed like a culmination of many things had spilled out of him at once, in frustration and in plain tiredness. Nico supposed he knew the feeling. It was almost as if the emotions were building up inside of them, piling and piling until finally someone would explode. Who would go first? It was almost a game. A cruel one at that.

Will had stopped walking, he stood now at the edge of the hall, waiting for Nico to respond. He looked accusatory.

"Will, you are smart. You're fucking smart, okay? No matter what anyone says, or what you say. I know you are. And how can you not be what you should? You are you. You shape yourself, other people shape you for good or for bad, and in the end you can't do anything about it. You are who you are, so how can that be wrong? If the universe wants you to be one way, then you will be. You can't go against it, and you can't go against yourself."

"You always talk about fate," Will said, somewhat bitterly. "Destiny. Those aren't real, Nico! We make our own decisions. We choose our own paths. We aren't set on them from the moment we're born, we can change them! What I'm saying is that I'm veering off in the wrong direction! It's like I can't even recognize who I am or what I do anymore. What I feel. It's not…"

His voice broke off suddenly.

"This isn't about school, isn't it," said Nico, almost at a whisper.

"No, it's not," Will said.

"I'm sorry," said Nico. "I didn't think it meant so much to you."

But he did. He did know that.

"Well, it did. It really did. What did it mean to you, Nico?"

Will looked up at him suddenly, and it took all of Nico's willpower to look directly back. Nico saw him pleading, he saw accusation and hurt and more terrible things, all swirled into one, packed like a bullet straight into Nico's temple.

"I… I don't know."

That was all that had come out. Nico felt very small. Inferior. More like done with himself. How could he be doing this to Will?

But that was how he felt.

I don't know.

Never before had his words sounded weaker.

To Nico's surprise, Will sighed.

"So, we should just forget about it?"

"I don't know, should we?" Nico suddenly felt scared. He didn't really want to forget about it, did he?

"Well, if that's how you feel, then… I think it would be better. For me."

He didn't look at Nico.

A breeze blew past, and Will's hair fell into his eyes.

Nico was scared to see that he could not find any emotion in his face.

The bell rang.

Nico ditched his shift to go see Romeo and Juliet.

He hadn't really felt like working anyway, even though Friday nights were usually the busiest at the diner. They could do it without him.

He wasn't sure if Will still expected him to come. He wasn't sure what their status was.

Was Will saying forget about the kiss? Or was he referring to their friendship? Or everything that had ever happened, more than that, between them?

Nico hoped that he had been talking about just the kiss.

Though that might be a bit hard to forget. Nico knew that even if they tried it would always be there, like a reminder. A million things could trigger the thought. And admittedly Nico wasn't sure that he could forget the feeling.

It had been Nico's first kiss with a boy. And Will's first real kiss ever. More than one kiss.

But they could pretend, oh yes, they could try to talk normally and pretend like it had never happened, and that Will was just his tutor and that they just happened to be friends. But it wouldn't be the same.

But Nico supposed that that was what they'd have to do, and if Will wanted it to be that way, then Nico couldn't stop him. But then he also couldn't stop the loss between them, as if something had gone and left them robbed.

When he got in line at the school theater some people stared at him. Probably he was the last person the kids expected to see show up. He ignored them.

It was almost nighttime. It wasn't windy anymore, the air hung heavy around him. Nico supposed it sort of reflected how he felt. He was at a standstill.

Had they made the right choice? The wrong? It bugged Nico to know that he had held all the cards in his hand, but could have chosen wrong. He had tossed them up in the air, to hell with where they landed.

He sat himself somewhere in the far back. Already the lights hurt his eyes. He had better not be getting a headache. But he could feel it throb once, twice, and then again. Fuck. Headaches meant treatment. Treatment meant the foil in his pocket. He looked straight ahead, trying to keep his mind off of it. Luckily, the play started soon after.

Nico almost laughed the first time Will came on. He was wearing a ridiculous costume, like Renaissance Faire weird. He spoke loudly and clearly, as always, and the acoustics in the theater made his voice ring out and around. It was a nice sound.

He looks hot.

…

Fucking shit.

Will was wearing tights, for Christ's sake!

But he looked like a prince or something, and soon Nico wasn't paying attention to anything that was going on besides Will. Even when he wasn't talking, Nico would stare at him, just to see. Any small movements, adjustments, reactions; the lights shone on his bright hair and stage makeup. He could tell that Will was in his element. It was nice to see him so confident for once. He had been a wreck ever since they… yeah.

Nico admired him for getting up there, in front of everyone. It was something that Nico himself would never do. But that was Will, Will was bright and open and sure of himself. At least until Nico had waltzed into his life, rearranged it, and then attempted to slide back out as if he had never been there. He had taken these things away from Will. How could he have done a thing as terrible as that?

And then Romeo and Juliet met.

And Will and Lou Ellen kissed.

Oh god, it was awful.

Lou Ellen looked like she was trying to suck Will's face off. Why would even posses her to do that? It was a play. Come on now. She didn't know what to do with her hands, either, and neither did Will, so the whole thing was just awkward and gross and just uh, why did it have to go on for so long? Really. There were kids in the audience. This was not educating them well.

The second time they kissed, Nico was so bothered he could barely look.

It wasn't just because Lou Ellen was a bad kisser. Though that was certainly true. She made Will look bad.

But it was because she was kissing the same lips that Nico had, she was looking into Will's eyes like Nico had, and she was doing everything that Nico had done and Nico couldn't stand it.

He couldn't stand the thought of anyone doing anything to Will but him.

It should be him in Lou Ellen's place. But not on the stage, somewhere else; somewhere nicer than a greasy parking lot and a whole lot more private. Or maybe it could be any of these places, because for the chance to take her place he would give anything, anything for an opportunity.

And it had taken this awfulness for him to realize that.

But it wasn't in Will's interests anymore.

It wasn't even real kissing, what they were doing up there, there was no actual meaning behind it. But to see it played out in front of him was enough to make Nico want to get up and leave. He clutched at the packet in his jacket pocket, maybe as some sort of consolation. It was too hot. The lights were too bright. And yet he couldn't leave, because what if Will and Lou Ellen kissed again? He didn't want to see it at all and yet he didn't want to miss it, for fear of not knowing.

And then it was over, and Nico was not sure how he had managed to last.

Outside, the actor came out, and parents and friends swarmed around them to take pictures and congratulations and other things. Nico could see Will's parents in the crowd, though his father looked sullen his mother looked teary, almost, even as she smiled.

And in the middle of it all was Will, arm around Lou Ellen. She held bouquets in her arms, and they both smiled and posed for the cameras. They looked so perfect, so clean, Nico couldn't quite describe it. But he could feel hope leaving him fast, sinking in his shoes.

And for a split second, Will made eye contact with him.

They seemed to be on different planes, two different worlds. Nico was separate from Will's brightness; Will stood with flowers and people and Nico stood alone, pills in his pocket. For a second the separation seemed larger than ever. It wasn't just the crowd separating them.

Nico tried to smile, and Will briefly lost his composure. Like he was searching for something…

Then Lou Ellen nudged him and he smiled again, like someone out of a catalog.

Afterwards Will came towards him, weaving his way through the people.

Nico wasn't sure what he wanted to say.

"Nico!"

Will caught him by the arms, and Nico was so surprised he might have fallen backwards.

"You came!"

"Yeah, I guess I did."

Nico searched Will's eyes, but he saw no trace of anything deeper, no second meaning. It had been there only minutes ago. Where had it gone?

"Did you like the play?"

"Yeah, it was great. You were great."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. Why do you always doubt yourself?"

For a second Will's smile wavered.

"I don't usually have people tell me otherwise."

"Well, I'm telling you now."

"Thanks."

He hugged him then. Nico could barely breath, much less think.

So Will really had moved on. He had moved past the kiss, the darker meanings, the hesitation.

It felt good, but Nico wasn't sure he really preferred it.

"Um, Nico?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we okay now? Have we, you know… are we just friends again?"

Nico couldn't help but look at Will, and he saw his eyes were earnest, waiting. Almost excited, almost scared.

"Yeah. I guess we are, Will."

"Good."

There was a pause.

"Well, thanks for coming."

"No problem."

"Bye."

"See you."

As Will walked away, Nico felt like punching something. Why should he? They were friends again. Back where they started.

But as try as he might, Will couldn't erase what had happened. And neither could Nico.

He thought again of Lou Ellen and Will kissing.

He wanted to destroy his own memories. God!

Everything was not fixed. They had tried to repair it, but badly, and the whole mess was now threatening to fall apart. But it was sticking together. Barely.

Now what would Nico do? What did he even want?

Right now, he wanted to go home and forget. So that was what he did.


	13. Chapter 13

It was the end of January, and it was flat and cold.

It was also Nico's birthday.

He was finally eighteen, and to be honest, he was surprised he had made it that far. An adult. Not much of an adult at that, but on paper it would seem so. Nico had contemplated dropping out of school, briefly, and not for the first time. But his mother had wanted him to at least get his GED. And if he didn't go to school, how would he see Will?

But for the first time in years he was actually getting better. He was actually improving, thanks to Will. His grades were past saving, but he was at least making an effort. Maybe community college would take him now, if he wanted to. If he even could put together the money. But he didn't want to go to college. What good would that do? He had a job already. And it was a whole dollar and fifty cents more than minimum wage! Clearly the heavens were already smiling down on him!

Though school was going surprisingly well, there was more that was not.

Will for one. That was not going well. Though it would seem so, it wasn't, and the problem was one that Nico couldn't quite put his finger on. But it was obvious, on the tip of his tongue, and he just couldn't come out and say it.

He just couldn't. Maybe he didn't want to admit it to himself. Maybe it was something else, it was everything else; he didn't know.

And there was another problem as well. These days he found himself eating less and less, staring into space more and more. The thought of food somehow repulsed him, and yet sometimes he was so hungry that he didn't know what to do with himself. And so his hands would shake, even more than usual. And to combat the shaking, well, there was only one solution. It seemed to take more now to calm him down. He wished he could just sleep all day, that seemed about right. He was always tired.

He was in a haze, and he was working. Not a great combination.

And then he turned around to come face to face with another problem he had almost forgotten about.

Literally, she was about two inches from his face.

He was hit full on once again with her eyes. He had left it to memory what that felt like. It gave him a shock.

"Woah, Thalia, I'm working."

It seemed like ages since they had last talked, but it really hadn't been so long ago. Just… a lot of things had happened since then.

A few of the people at the surrounding tables had turned to stare. She was just standing there, not moving, and way too close to him. In the middle of the diner. And he didn't really want to move back, either. For a second, he was sure she was going to kiss him.

But she didn't. Honestly, he never knew what to expect with her. He wouldn't be surprised if she decided to walk into school one day topless. Nor would he admittedly be entirely displeased.

"Happy birthday," she said, and she hugged him.

Well, that was the last thing he was expecting. Something normal? Nah. Not her.

"You're weird," he said as they pulled apart. She smelled like cigarette smoke. Nico hated that smell. But under that, something sweet.

"So are you," she said, crossing her arms. "Nice bow tie."

"Okay, look-"

"It's crooked," she said, and fixed it for him. Nico could see his manager staring. He shook his head.

"Hey, let's be professional."

"I just fixed your uniform. I'm helping."

"Sure. You're gonna get me in trouble, you know?"

"Wow, I'm so bad. Wishing my friend a happy birthday."

"I can get you kicked out, you know that? Believe it or not, I'm supposed to be working."

"Oh Nico, I know you don't want me to leave."

She said it sweetly, but he could tell that she didn't mean it that way.

He ran a hand through his hair, exasperated.

"Trying to look cool?"

"Not anymore than you."

"You're so mean," she said. "Come wait my table."

"I'm a busboy!" he yelled after her.

She pretended not to hear him, and went to sit herself down.

His manager came up behind him and poked him in the back.

"Hey, I don't know what that girl was doing, but don't have your dates in here."

"She's definitely not my girlfriend."

"That's what you always say. Fine, don't bring your hookups in here either."

"I'm not…why is this such a big deal? I talked for like a minute!"

"Look, kid, just because you're a pretty boy doesn't mean that you can't do your damn job around here."

"What?!"

"Yeah, you know Justin? He's no looker, but at least he still manages to show up for his shift."

"What are you even talking about?"

"You've ditched four of your last ten shifts. Does that ring a bell?"

Oh yeah.

Nico hadn't felt like going. He couldn't really bring himself to. It was only when he reminded himself that he needed the money, that he really needed the money, that he would go in. It hadn't concerned him until now, but he had a job, and an actual commitment. Too many things had been happening lately for Nico to really care.

"Do you know how small our staff is? It's hard to cover shifts, you know that!"

"Yeah, I'm sorry."

"Call me sir."

"Sorry, sir."

"Do you want to be fired?"

The manager's face had gone twenty shades of red. Nico couldn't help it, he took a step back. He hated the management at Stacey's. But he could not lose this job. He just couldn't. If he did, he wasn't sure what he would do. He doubted his abilities to find another one, and besides, how long would it take to find another offer before his next payment? He could beg Will for money. Ah yeah, that would turn out just fantastic.

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"It better not."

"It won't."

"Good, because you're taking Tommy's shift tonight."

"Who's Tommy?"

"He's the new dishwasher."

Nico didn't suppose it would help him much to mention that today was his birthday.

"So tell that girl you're gonna be a while."

Nico knew that if he opened his mouth, he would regret it. So he didn't. Instead he turned around, fuming, and went to do his damn job.

When he passed by Thalia, he made sure the manager wasn't watching before he spoke.

"I'm gonna be a while," he said.

"How long?"

"I'm here till midnight. They made me pick up an extra shift."

"Midnight?"

"You might as well go home."

"But I came all the way over here to give you your present!"

"Oh… thanks, Thalia. You didn't have to. Just give it to me later."

"No, I think I'm going to give it to you now."

She pulled him down by his shirt collar and kissed him.

He barely had time to react before she had pushed him back. She smiled at him, that smile… for a slight moment something inside Nico seemed to pull upwards, and he bit his lip.

"Well, shit," was all he could say.

"You're welcome," she said, and rising out of the booth, she made to leave. He watched her hips slide around the edge of the table; she had curves. Curves that only a girl could have. He felt her fingers straying on his shoulder. Then she was gone, the bell on the door tinkling behind her.

He stood there for a moment.

He usually didn't act this idiotic, but… Thalia Grace. He would play the fool for her a million times over. He glanced out the window, hoping maybe he could still see her, but she had left. It was as if he could still feel her lips, though they hadn't been there nearly long enough. Ah, he wanted her back. He could just ditch his shift, screw the manager, and follow her wherever she wanted to go. He wanted to. He really did.

Every time he saw her it was like she induced a haze in his mind; something dark and fragrant like a smoking lounge or something; it seemed to dull his senses. Like drugs! But she was her own special kind, and Nico could bet he would get her for free. God, he loved looking at her. He could look at her all day. When he was with her, he could think of nothing else. How had he forgotten the feeling?

To see her, it came back in a rush.

"Dude! Who was she?" A waiter came up behind him.

"She's a friend," Nico said.

"More than friends," smirked the waiter.

"I have no idea."

"Are you gonna get on that?"

"I… you know-"

"You have all the luck. It's not fair. You're too young, Nico!"

"Ha ha."

"Damn, she's hot though."

"Jailbait, much?"

"I'm in college! Give me a break!"

The waiter left, laughing, and it took Nico a full ten seconds before realizing that he was supposed to be working.

Her haze was clearing, and as it did, someone else's face came into view.

It was Will's.

Nico's heart lurched.

Will was not the last person he had kissed, no, now it was Thalia. Thalia's lips where Will's had been. How different they were.

Thalia, with all her god given curves, eyeliner straight and violent. Crossing, uncrossing her legs; open wide, closed in; playing and prying with her smile and crazy eyes. Stomping around the school in her boots. She liked messing with people's minds. She was a release of her cigarette smoke in the air, clouding thoughts.

And Will. Will with his honest face, open for everyone to read. Hair barely reaching his eyes, curling around his ears. Strong, who Nico had broken down. Who knew so much, but not about what was important. Smiling always, or trying to. In collared shirts and khakis. Fucking adorable little kid. Whom Nico cared about. A lot.

Oh god, Will.

Nico wanted to yell, I didn't mean it!

But he had. And he had to remind himself that it was ok. They had confirmed that they were friends. Just friends. So, whatever they had made, spun like a fragile web between them, it had broken. There was no longer anything there. So Nico could go for Thalia. He was perfectly free to do so. So why did he feel like he couldn't? Like he was somehow violating Will to do so?

This wasn't cheating! They hadn't even been dating, for christ's sake! That seemed so odd too, dating a guy… when Nico had never even dated a girl-

Why the fuck was everything so confusing?

Remember Thalia.

But her fragrance was already fading.

It was those moments, however, when she was in close proximity, that Nico felt as if he wanted her more than anyone else. And when she was gone, it was a bit harder to remember that. But he still did, think about her, and to imagine her face was to imitate her effect yet again. Not quite the same, but almost.

Enough of this.

He wanted to forget about what had happened with Will almost as much as he didn't want to forget. But to save their friendship, he knew that he had to. The more it faded into the background, the better. It was better that way, wasn't it?

So what better way was there to forget Will than with Thalia?

But it grated on him, and he thought about it all through clearing tables and all through the god-awful dish washing.

When he finally got in his car, he put the keys in the ignition, but didn't turn them.

He reached for his phone in the half darkness, and dialed Will.

It rang for a few seconds before he picked up.

"Nico?"

"Hey, Will."

"It's so late…"

"I know."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I am… I just needed to talk to you."

"Oh… okay."

Just hearing the softness of his voice made Nico want to cringe. Why?

"Um, I know I've kind of already asked you this, but what do you think of Thalia?"

"Thalia Grace?" Will's voice became slightly guarded, drawn in.

"Yeah."

Nico didn't know why, but he felt like he needed validation. An okay, just something to relax him. Will was silent for a moment, and Nico's heart sped up.

"She's alright, I guess."

"What do you really think? Like really?"

He heard Will make a small frustrated sound. "I don't know her very well! I don't know, I guess she's cool? Why do you ask?"

"Because…" All the sudden Nico didn't want to say it. He looked at the clock on the dashboard, 12:41. Late for Will. Early for Nico. Why had he bothered Will at this ungodly hour? Why had he even called him at all? Well, it was too late now. Once again, Nico was only concerned about himself. About himself feeling better. As for Will, who cares? As long as Nico was fine, that was all that mattered. Ugh. What had Will ever done to deserve this, to deserve Nico?

But he had to say it. "Because I was wondering what you thought about me and her."

Silence again, and it was as if Nico's heart was racing ahead, tripping and sliding, like car tires on sleet.

Now this was confirming it, that they were friends, just friends…

I don't want to move on!

But he had to. For himself and for Will.

Right?

"Do you still like her?" Will asked finally. His voice seemed tired, not just because of the time, but more defeated. He sounded older. Nico hated to hear him like that.

"Well, she just came into Stacey's and kissed me."

"Kissed you?"

"On the lips, yeah."

"Oh."

"So, uh, do you think I should go for it?"

"Why are you asking my permission?" asked Will. He sounded defiant.

"Well, because… no reason, I guess."

It was obviously a lie.

"Well, you can do what you want," Will said, somewhat bitterly. "She obviously likes you back."

"But I didn't say that I liked her back."

"You did say that, all the time."

"That was a while ago."

"No, it wasn't. But if you still like her, I think you should go for it." Will's voice had shifted, his tone sounded lighter. Nico wondered what had changed. But there it was, permission. So… what now?

"I have something to tell you, too," said Will suddenly.

"Shoot."

"At my parent's Christmas party… Lou Ellen and I kind of made out."

Nico had kind of been expecting Lou Ellen to make a move, but he was still surprised. Unpleasantly so. Honestly, he was going to have a heart attack if his heart beat any faster. Just the thought of it… even worse than Romeo and Juliet. How perfect they would seem, the two of them, under mistletoe, no doubt, perfectly clean and wholesome and kind. Nico bet even Will's idiotic father would approve. He imagined Will and Lou Ellen's mothers flocked together like birds, whispering like school girls.

But if he could forget about all that had happened, why couldn't Will? It was only fair.

But he was still skeptical. Made out? Really? Will?

I mean, we made out, but that was because it was me at the wheel.

He had to ask. "Really? How did it go?"

"It was; it was...good, I guess," Will said.

"I thought you didn't like kissing her."

"That was that one time. You should have seen us this time around."

Nico almost laughed. Or cussed, he wasn't sure what would've happened if he hadn't thought before he spoke.

"Well, good for you."

"Thanks."

"So… you've got Thalia."

"And you've got Lou Ellen."

This was the time to say something, anything; anything to make it not true. But Nico just couldn't.

"No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings."

"See you, then."

"Goodnight."

When Will hung up Nico leaned back in the driver's seat, as far as he could go. It seemed to him that none of the conversation had been truthful. But he had to believe it was. What good would it do him to mope around, wishing for something different, something that could have happened but didn't? This whole thing was Nico's fault. This was just another problem to put in the past. And Nico had had many. And all this because he couldn't decide whether he was horny or actually in love. He had never been good at making decisions. This was probably another bad one, no matter how hard he had tried to make it otherwise.

All this because of one person, one boy, one child; Will Solace, whom Nico had never even spoken to until a few months ago. And yet now he felt as if it would physically hurt him if Will were to leave him alone. He felt like the tables had turned. Not so long ago it had been Will pining for him. Now it was the other way around.

Screw Lou Ellen. Screw how perfect she and Will would be together, screw their perfect little lives. He had someone he could distract himself with now too; oh yes. Thalia. He didn't even dislike her, in fact, he liked her a lot. She was like him, messed up in a way, and she needed catching up. He was sure that she and he would do much worse than what little he and Will had ever done. But surely it would feel like less, wouldn't it?

It didn't matter. It didn't at all. Why should he care? They were both boys. It just didn't work. Besides that similarity they were different in every possible way.

Most of all, he didn't want to change Will.

Nico liked him the way he was, and he feared that the closer he got to him, the less Will would be himself. Look what he had already done to him.

So, Thalia. She could look forward to it.

Author's note:  
hey I don't know if many people follow this story at all, but if you want more chapters my primary site is fanfiction.net under the same username. This story is always updated first on there, and I am much farther along updating that, so there are more chapters. Sorry for neglecting to mention this earlier... I believe I said something along these lines at the start but was not clear enough. Thank you if you like this story!


	14. Chapter 14

Will was lying on the floor doing homework when his father shouted from downstairs.

"Will! Come down here right now!"

Oh no.

He threw all his things together, hurriedly, his pencil skidded across the floor.

"Will!"

"Coming!"

What could it be? Will's mind raced as he hurried out of the room.

A terrible thought hit him.

Nico.

Did his father know?

He heard his footsteps down the stairs, slowing down. He was scared. He couldn't help it, almost terrified. He shouldn't be this afraid of his dad. But what would he do, if his worse fears were confirmed. If his father knew, somehow, impossibly, what he had done with Nico. And now, when Will was just trying to put it behind him.

He had lied to Nico, on the phone the other night. He and Lou Ellen had not made out, rather, it had been hopelessly one sided. And the even bigger lie, that he had liked it. He had hated it. Despised it. But he couldn't let Nico know that. He couldn't let Nico control him; he had to move on. But Nico and Thalia… Will couldn't deny how much that had hurt him. He had had to pretend, that he didn't care, that he encouraged it, when really it was the opposite. She had just come into his work and kissed him? Who did that? He imagined Nico watching her walk out, Thalia with her perfect body and such, not even looking back. His hands clenched into fists. It was so wrong.

What was he doing? He was supposed to like Lou Ellen. He had already moved on, hadn't he? They were friends. They had literally confirmed exactly that. And Will had been okay with it, at the time. Well, okay as he could be. But now… Thalia. Against his will, Will could feel jealousy start to penetrate his barrier. And he had been doing so well. Or at least he had thought-

"William Solace! Are you deaf? Come down here now!"

Will took a deep breath, and turned around the corner.

His father stood in the middle of the kitchen, his mother sitting meekly at the counter, hands in her lap. In his hands were crumpled pieces of paper.

It took Will only an instant to put two and two together.

"Dad, I-"

"Will."

Just the way his father had said it made Will's words leave him all at once, as if sucked out of him by a vacuum. Will could barely look him in the eyes.

"What is this?"

He shoved the paper in Will's face. They fell like snowflakes at his feet.

Will already knew what it was. He saw three, four, maybe more tests before him, marked with ugly letters. Two Ds. An F. He had shoved them all in the kitchen trash can, hoping he could forget. His father must have found him. After his initial D, it had gotten even worse. But how could he study, when he couldn't even think correctly? When he couldn't even handle himself? Too many days he had spent in frustration, laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Attempting to work, but not really finding the will to, and not really caring, anyway. Why should he care, when he was falling apart like this? He hadn't meant to. It had just happened. He felt his throat begin to seize up.

"Well?" asked his father.

"I… I don't know...I-"

"What is it, Will? I know it's not tennis or piano. You've been handling your work and your extracurriculars fine all your life. So what is this? What went wrong?"

"I just… have a lot going on lately-"

"Like what, Will? Is it Lou Ellen? Because I will make sure you two don't see each other if things like this keep happening."

"No, it's not her."

"Then what is it?"

"Dad, I don't see why this is such a big deal!"

He almost yelled it, and cowered back when he saw the look on his father's face. How could he tell his father the reason why? And could he even explain it if he tried?

It's because of Nico Diangelo and the way he's completely and utterly taken over my life!

He couldn't ever say it. His father was already mad. What would he do if Will told him that he was gay? Will didn't even want to think about that…

"What did you say to me?" his father said, his voice lowered, so it was almost a whisper.

"Don't talk to your father that way!" said his mother, rising from her chair.

Will took a step backwards, then another.

"Don't you walk away, Will!" his father said. "What's wrong with you?"

What is wrong with me?

So much more than his father could ever guess.

"What's going on with you? You know you're in line to be valedictorian! How could you let your grades slip now?"

"Do you have any idea how much money we've put into your education, Will? All your lessons? Is this how you repay us? By giving up?" his mother demanded.

Will had always taken it before. He always had. But somehow his emotions had gotten so tangled lately, maybe that was why, he didn't quite know. But something snapped. He didn't care. He really, truly, in that moment, didn't. He looked at his parents' faces and saw nothing there.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" he said, shakily. "This is my business! And I don't care anymore, I really don't."

"You think you can-"

"No!" Will yelled, almost surprising himself. "I...I can't! Just leave me alone!"

And with that he turned on his heel and ran.

He heard his parent's voices behind him.

"Don't you dare, Will!"

"Turn around this instant!"

But he didn't care. He ran outside, letting the door shut behind him. He could barely hear the slam, or his parent's shouts, he could only hear his heart pounding in his ears. What was he doing? He had never talked back to his parents before. Ever. He had always just let them yell at him, looked down at the floor. But he couldn't control his emotions anymore. He just couldn't.

What's wrong with you?

He got into his car, turned on the engine, and drove.

And he drove to the one person he could think of, and the only person he wanted to see.

Who was also the person who had done all this to him.

When he got to Stacey's, it was past eight. He was almost shaking, now. He could barely think. He slipped through the door and approached a waiter.

"Um… is Nico here?"

The boy looked at him funny.

"Who are you?"

"I'm… his friend."

"Oh, he's not working today. Sorry."

"Oh...okay."

Will was embarrassed. He walked outside, and leaned up against the side of the restaurant. Now what should he do?

Above him in pink neon, Open 24 hours.

He and Nico had kissed below that sign not so long ago. And yet it seemed like years. Too long.

Will was falling apart.

He took out his phone. Missed calls, unread texts… all from his parents. He ignored them.

He dialed Nico. Every ring resounded in his head almost painfully.

Finally Nico picked up. "Will?"

All the sudden Will started crying. He felt humiliated; boys didn't cry. But it just came out of him, and to hear Nico's voice say his name was almost too much for some reason, he was relieved beyond belief. It suddenly occurred to him how much he missed Nico, how much he craved his attention. And he cried out of exhaustion, because of all that had happened. And frustration, because how could one person make him feel so good and so bad at the same time? He didn't understand. He was so confused.

"Will? Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"What are you apologizing for? It's okay Will, just take a deep breath."

His voice was so soothing that it almost had the opposite effect on Will. He hiccuped, trying to pull himself together. He tried to take a breath, too, but only succeeded in inhaling a lungful of smoky air.

"Nico, Nico…"

"Yeah?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm at home. Why?"

"Can I come over? Please. I'll explain later. I just…need somewhere to go."

Nico was silent for a moment, just a second.

"Yeah. You can."

Will was a thousand times grateful that Nico hadn't asked anymore. Soon he had his address, had gasped out a thank you, and was on his way.

If he hadn't been so despondent, he might have taken more note about where he was going. The neighborhoods began to get progressively worse. He had driven almost half an hour when he arrived, and found himself in front of a peeling yellow house with a brown front lawn. There was a single light inside. He could almost hear the wind whistling through the dirty street.

Will didn't care. He got out quickly from his car and almost ran to the door. His heart beat in his chest. He just wanted to see him, Nico, please, he just needed at least that… Nico was the only person that cared. He needed someone who did, no matter how complicated, how twisted their situation was. And maybe Nico was the only other person in the world that understood Will's situation, because he had caused it.

The door swung open and Will all but fell into Nico's arms.

Nico held him there, and Will breathed in his scent, felt his body pressed against him, his dark hair, just everything Nico was he soaked in, and he could barely stand their proximity without pushing even closer. He felt Nico's arms tighten around him before rubbing his back, he was comforting him, that's what he was doing, and Will did not want to let go. He wasn't sure if he was crying again, or what, but for a moment he felt a little bit better. Actually a lot, and he knew that it was Nico, and only Nico, who could give this to him.

Nico finally pushed him away gently.

"Come inside. You're a mess."

Will nodded and followed him through the screen door. The house was dark and almost menacing, and random objects and trash were strewn about everywhere as if a small storm had passed through the narrow halls. Will was sure his mom would wrinkle her nose. It was a small house, and empty. Was Nico alone? Will didn't hear anyone else.

Nico poured Will a glass of water, which Will drank all at once. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and took a shaky breath. He tried to wipe his eyes, too, he was sure he looked terrible. But he was kind of past caring. Nico leaned against the counter beside him and folded his arms over his chest.

"Are you okay now?"

"I think so."

"So what happened?"

Will told him, tripping over his words, talking so fast even he himself couldn't really follow what he was saying. No, he was not okay. If he had calmed down before, it was coming back to him now, fast and crazy.

"And I just couldn't stay there, Nico, I couldn't, and I can't go back-"

"Calm down, Will. You're good," said Nico.

"I'm not good," Will said. "I know it sounds stupid, but I don't know why I'm taking it this bad! My parents have done this all my life. Why now…"

He hesitated, running a hand through his hair. He had to be careful before he told Nico too much. But he was worried he already had. The way Nico was looking at him now, like he knew exactly what was wrong, like he knew what Will was feeling, was too much. He took a few more breaths, staggered now… he couldn't calm down now. He was going crazy, wasn't he? This must be what it felt like, this feeling of nothingness, and then letting go of that emptiness… he hated his parents, he hated himself, Thalia and Lou Ellen, and most of all he hated that he couldn't hate Nico.

He felt Nico take his hand, lightly, almost not feeling it.

How can I hate him? How can I?

"Hey," he said softly, too softly. "Come over here."

He led Will down the hall by the hand, and Will let him. It seemed familiar. They came to a bedroom, probably Nico's, Will assumed. It was rather colorless, the bed unkempt and limp. Clothes on the floor. There was barely any light, rather, the only light in the house was from the kitchen, barely sneaking around the corner. Nico sat down on the bed, and Will followed him.

"Why don't you rest?" Nico said. "Sleep, or something."

"I don't know…" Will said. Nico had let go of his hand.

"No, I think you need it. Trust me. Just lie down."

He looked into Nico's eyes, gleaming in the semi-darkness. Sincere, were they? Will couldn't tell, and for a moment he terrified him. What did he know about Nico? He was basically trapped here, in this strange house, in a strange neighborhood, in a strange bed. He felt like leaving. But he felt like staying more, he felt like staying and never leaving. And he knew that he couldn't go back to his house tonight.

And he was tired, he really was tired. He had never felt more weary in his life.


	15. Chapter 15

It was half past eleven, and the house was darker than ever.

The only light that really worked was in the kitchen, and Nico had turned that off after Will had gone to sleep. But the street and the stars cast some sort of light into room, and Nico could see Will clearly, as if outlined, curled up on his bed. Nico had draped a blanket over him.

He watched Will's frame move up and down as he breathed in and out, slowly now. His face in the shallow light looked almost wiped clean, his brow unfurrowed and his lips slightly parted. He looked peaceful.

Which was the opposite of how he had been a few hours ago, when he had come to Nico's door. Something in Will had seemed broken, as if he had dropped a glass statue, like the ones in his mother's house, and it had shattered, the shards ripping into his chest. He had clung onto Nico with some kind of urgency. And before that on the phone, and after, he had been crying. It would have been awkward, if it hadn't scared Nico so much.

Had he done this to Will? No, it had been his parents. His parents, who somehow could find the will to bully someone as beautiful and defenseless as Will. It disgusted Nico. It really did. He understood adults hating him, that was perfectly justified, but Will? Never. He hated Will's parents for doing this to him, to ruin Will tonight like they had.

And underneath all that, Nico couldn't help but feel like this was partly his fault.

After all, he had broken Will first.

So he had done what Bianca had done to him many nights many days ago, and talked quietly and let Will rest, so maybe when he woke up it would be better.

He layed down on the bed, beside Will.

He had never felt worse for someone than he did for Will.

It made him angry, that all this pain had been caused for him. Will didn't deserve it one bit. Not at all. Rather Nico deserved it more than anyone, but he could numb it with medication. Were they so different? Yes, they were. Will's problems came from a completely different place than Nico's. And Nico couldn't help gloat, terribly, that Will's life really wasn't as perfect as it seemed. He seemed to have slipped from his high pedestal, no longer towering over Nico. Rather he moved ever closer, falling, flailing, until maybe one day he'd hit rock bottom and be there with Nico forever. No, it couldn't happen, not to Will!

Will stirred suddenly, blinking his eyes twice, three times.

He saw Nico next to him and all but scrambled backwards.

"Chill, I'm not going to… do anything."

Will looked embarrassed, Nico thought that maybe if it had been lighter he would have seen him blush. He lay back down slowly, tentatively. He looked up at the ceiling, as if searching for something there.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Nico replied.

"How long did I sleep?"

"A few hours."

Silence.

"So your parents act like this all the time?" Nico asked. He was slightly scared to do so. It occurred to him that maybe Will didn't want to talk about it anymore. But Nico kind of wanted to know, know more.

Will sighed. "Yeah, pretty much since I can remember. They just want me to do well. It's stupid for me to act out."

"No, it's not," Nico said. He turned on his side, facing Will, and Will did the same. "It's not fair to you at all. It was about time for you to stand up to them."

"But I can't!" Will said. He looked away from Nico. "I don't know what they would do. I don't know what they'll do when I come back. I'm...I'm scared."

"You could just stay here with me," Nico said, and he was embarrassed to hear it come out almost hopeful, instead of sardonic.

Will smiled slightly, looking up again. Their eyes met, and Nico's heart flew up into his throat, just for an instant. Their faces were so close to each other, inches. An image popped into his mind; Will sleeping, his lips slightly parted; then another; Will after they had kissed so long; lips slightly parted again, his lips… Nico tore himself away.

"No, I'll leave in the morning. It's fine. It's not like my parents won't take me back. I'll just… have to do better next time."

"You can. You're the smartest person I know."

"Thanks, Nico."

His smile… Nico could not do this again. No he could not, not to Will.

And Will asked a question.

"And Nico, what about your family? What… what are they like?"

And suddenly all of Nico's thoughts were replaced with a very different set of feelings.

Did he even want to go there? Open it all up again? He didn't, he was pretty sure he didn't at all. But he looked at Will, who looked so honest. Will wanted to know. Couldn't he tell him? He owed him at least that.

He could tell that he had paused too long, Will was looking at him anxiously.

"I'm sorry, if you don't want to-"

"No, it's fine."

Images flooded into Nico's mind, they seemed to float, and he struggled to catch them, to sort them into some discernable order. There was simply too much… was it really this much? But it was, and Nico supposed he had never really thought about it chronologically, because he had never told anyone about his life before. To him it seemed like one thing, one enormous stone, unmovable, pinning him down. How could he vocalize this in a way that… sounded casual? didn't make Will feel weird?

Who was he kidding. Was it even worth it to care anymore?

"Tell me about your life, Nico," Will whispered. "Please. I want to know about you."

He had read Will like an open book, and Will knew nothing about him. Would Will be scared to hear?

The sound of the street passed inside and outside.

Finally he figured he might as well just start. Once it was out, well, that was something else to worry about. But he suddenly felt like he wanted to tell Will, that he owed him at least that much. That he needed to tell someone.

He began.

"I was born in Italy. I'm still not a full citizen here."

Will smiled again. Probably the last time he would in a while, Nico mused.

"Italy! I've been to Venice on break. What was it like?"

"I...I don't remember it much. I was young when we left. I speak Italian, but it's not amazing. Me and my mom and my sister Bianca left there and came over here, to California."

"And your dad?"

"I never really knew my father. My mom was really young when she had me."

"I'm sorry."

"It's cool, I don't really care about him. But my mom… like I said, she was young, and she came here basically alone. There's some family here, but they all live in Southern California."

Will knit his eyebrows. "But, your mom. She moved out of the house, didn't she, what was-"

He stopped himself, biting his lip. Nico remembered how curious Will had been, that day she had left. Nico had frozen up like an idiot. Way obvious. That day the leaves had flown across the pavement, hadn't they?...

His mother. He hadn't really thought of her since that day, he had pushed all thoughts of her away, tossed her things and her trash out in the street the morning after. How was she doing now? He hadn't heard anything, but it wasn't like he had expected to.

"My mom was an alcoholic. Is. She did other things too… but mostly she liked drinking. She tried, but mostly it was Bianca who took care of me. Bianca was the only one that I really had. I don't really have friends, I didn't back then. So it was just the two of us, and Bianca worked when my mother couldn't. Which was often. My mom could never hold down a job. I think she pretty much only cared about herself. All she did was drink and watch tv and bring home different guys. At least then she never cared who I brought home."

It sounded bitter, he realized. Well. He had a right to be bitter.

Will's eyes had gone wide, he looked like a deer or something. He didn't say anything.

"Can I go on?"

Will nodded, just barely. Nico could feel their legs touching, almost pressing into each other.

"So that's how it was."

And then…

Nico didn't want to remember this part. He did remember, definitely, but he had locked it from himself, hoping that he would never have to bring it up again. But he was over it, wasn't he? He had never cried for her. Instead, he found something else…

He couldn't shake the feeling that maybe somewhere she was watching him, watching him do all these things to himself and to others and not being to stop him, but only looking silently sadly on.

"Then when I was a freshman, Bianca died."

Will almost gasped, he put a hand over his mouth. He reached out and touched Nico's arm.

"Nico, I am so, so, sorry… I can't even imagine-"

"It's fine," Nico said brusquely, mechanically. He was used to it, the teachers, students, school counselors who had said the same thing years ago, promising that it would be okay, that they would help. They had not lived up to their word. What was one more assertion, then? He knew Will meant well. Was very sincere. But it didn't mean much to Nico, after all that.

He had practically trained himself not to respond to what had happened to Bianca. He never talked about her. He didn't even think about her that much these days, he didn't have time. But having Will next to him, for some reason, seemed to be opening holes he had worked so hard to close. He fought the feelings. He couldn't do this now, now when he had suppressed this so long, conquered it. He didn't want to think about her. How he had practically erased everything she had done for him. How he had no doubt disappointed her by destroying himself like this.

In the hall in a drawer was his bag of pills, which he really wanted but couldn't right now, not when Will was here.

And that reminded him of a cardboard box under his bed, where there were more pills, stronger ones, too, but just for emergencies. Just in case he ever ran out, for any reason. He didn't need them now, but would he later?

Will spoke softly, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"If you don't mind me asking… what happened?"

Nico must have changed expressions, because Will quickly apologized.

"No, it's cool… she was coming home from work one day, and there was this drunk driver that hit her. The doctors said she died almost instantly. She was nineteen, I think, when it happened."

Nico didn't mention that that was when he had really fallen apart.

He didn't mention that three months after that, he had started taking Vicodin.

He remembered the day it had happened. After school, late after school, he had been hanging around Octavian. And in the back parking lot, Octavian had taken that bottle out of his car. He had said that Nico seemed off lately, but he knew how he could fix it. His brother had a prescription, he said, and it was totally safe and legal! Nico had believed him. There was always loopholes, after all. Nico had tried it once, for free, and it had worked. And then for cheap, until he had felt himself needing the pill, and then the price had shot up like a rocket and Octavian knew that he had him, he had him good. Nico had found a job to pay for the caps, as he took more and as he couldn't function without them. And after that, anything else he didn't really care about. Not school, not his health, not his future, and definitely not his mother.

So here he was, caught somewhere numb between okay and not okay, and teetering precariously somewhere between them, one more push, and he would completely fall over.

He had lived like that for a while; he had gotten pretty much used to it. He heard, but wasn't listening to Will apologizing to him, telling him how hard it must have been and that Nico didn't deserve it and other empty things like that.

Feeling was difficult. Emotions were hard. So the less he had of them, the more sane he was, didn't it work like that? He had always thought that after Bianca died, until he had met Will. Will had made him want to feel more, more besides craving, emotions that were good, and worthwhile. But with those feelings came other ones that Nico didn't want to feel, like sadness and longing and guilt.

He and Will were different, weren't they? Will let his emotions pour out of him, all at once, either not able to hide or not caring who saw. While Nico held them in, guarded them, god forbid anyone see.

And now Will had come at him like a battering ram, penetrating his wall, but why?

What was it about Will that made him so special?

That made Nico feel like he needed him, more than anything?

And here he was, under the same sheet as Will, arms and legs touching, and the memory of a kiss floating above them, coming ever closer. Nico forced himself to block that memory out of his mind. That wasn't what they were talking about, that wasn't why they were here. But Nico could feel the want almost seeping into his body; Will was so close. But he couldn't. Will was already in a state, what would Nico coming on to him do for that? And Will was with Lou Ellen? Maybe? Nico was pretty sure he was lying. But he couldn't be sure.

"Then, Nico, where's your mom? Why did she leave?" Will said then, and all thoughts of arousal left Nico's mind just as quickly as they had come.

He remembered that day, when he felt he just couldn't take it anymore, he watched his mother watch television in a tight dress and high heels and hated her. Hated her, blamed her for everything, because it was her fault, oh yes, and Bianca had been gone for a while now but his mother still hadn't done anything about it. She had cried at the funeral, promised to be better, but a week after she had returned to her ways. And Nico watched the little money that Bianca had tried to save drain into drink and fucking plastic surgery for her nose.

This hadn't been that long ago at all, but it had taken Nico that long to finally give up.

How funny it was, the house that they lived in, a mother dressed up and a son coming home from work, watching television together. Except for Nico stood watching from the hallway, his job was to pay for a prescription he didn't have, and his mother was dressed up because she was about to go out and find another man who would maybe pay for her drinks tonight. It was then that Nico had dialed the phone for help. When she found out, his mother had screamed and cried. Nico had let her. He didn't care anymore.

"That day, remember? When she left?" Nico said to Will. "A few weeks earlier I called my aunt in Southern California and told her that she needed to take my mom to rehab. I just… I guess I didn't want to deal with her anymore. My mom was angry at first, but eventually she just gave in. My aunt came up here and took her a month or two ago."

The day she had left, Nico had almost felt bad. He had felt guilty, she was his mom, he couldn't just let her go and leave himself alone. But he had always been alone, hadn't he? At least after Bianca died. She had cried more and she had looked so defenseless that he almost caved in, almost. But he didn't, because though he loved her, he had hated her for too long. She seemed almost alien to him, as if she didn't exist anymore. He had not heard from her since, and he thought that maybe that was best.

And every once in awhile he would think of Bianca. Everyone had always said how much they looked alike, how much they looked like their mother. A beautiful family. Maybe from the outside. He remembered being younger, when Bianca had cooked for him and he would sit at the kitchen table, as she would talk to him about her school and her problems and where she wanted to go to college. She had gone to a private girls' school, on a scholarship. But after she had graduated there just wasn't enough money, so she had started saving for Nico instead, who at that time had seemed promising. At that time. Nico could have laughed.

She had always been strong, kinder, better, than Nico or their mother. She had been truly beautiful, while Nico and his mother had used their looks for shallow purposes, for lying and for favors. She was smart, but not in the way Nico was, more like in the way Will was. So maybe in that sense she knew nothing at all. And it had always bothered Nico that the man who had killed her could just as easily have been their mother.

Then Bianca was gone, and the rest of the family were left to rot in their ways.

Nico hated that he was more like his mother than Bianca, but as the years went by he knew it was true.

So in time he had concluded that it wasn't Bianca's fault, or his mother's, or his father's, it was Nico's fault for what had happened to him, and his alone. He wasn't sure why, it just was. He felt cursed, to have been born into his life. There was nothing he could do to change it. He had grown used to it.

He had never attempted suicide, because he wasn't brave enough and besides, why kill himself when there were things that made him feel good? Like pills and sex?

And now Will.

Will had torn him up from his semi-consciousness, he had ripped Nico from his old existence and pulled him up into a new one.

Now he was speaking.

"Nico, can I tell you something?"

"Anything."

"You are the most-," he paused. "You're beautiful."

"What?" Nico could barely breathe.

"I'm sorry, that's insensitive and all but-"

"But what?"

"I don't know, I can't describe it. But, all these things… your life, and yet you've come from it? You're here, and you're this person despite it all… it's beautiful. I don't know how to explain, but it's you, Nico!"

"Me?"

"Yes, you! Just everything you are!"

"You're not making any sense."

"What I'm trying to say is that… you're special, Nico. You're the single most special person I've ever met."

And it gave Nico a shock, because that was exactly how he felt about Will.

It seemed that in a short time all the distance that had been put between them since they kissed had suddenly dissolved; and Nico felt closer to Will than ever before. Did he feel it too? He must.

But Will didn't kiss him, instead, he wrapped his arms around Nico and hugged him. Nico could smell his cologne, their legs were entwined; he felt Will's hair on his cheek, and it felt so good, so impossibly good, that he knew he wouldn't be the first to let go.

At this point, he supposed, neither of them really cared that it was strange, or that they were both boys, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the moment, and Nico was grateful for it. More than Will knew. Then he could ever guess.

He felt like saying something, anything, but he couldn't find the words. And that seemed okay with Will, so Nico was content to lay there in his arms for as long as Will would let him.

"Are you better now, Will?" Nico whispered.

"I think so," said Will. "But I'm still scared."

"Don't be. It's gonna be fine."

"Thanks, but Nico, are you going to be okay?"

The question took Nico aback.

"Maybe," he said. "Maybe now."

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this story is originally from my account on fanfiction.net. a big shout out to justaroundthecorner1907 on tumblr for making wonderful fanart for this story!


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